Life in a Dictatorial Eden and an Anarchic Utopia
by sleepy.cat.zzz
Summary: Watanuki's spirit is snatched away from his body, leaving an empty shell. Yuko sends Domeki to retreave it. Both boys are wisked through various perils and various casts as they try to survive the war between heaven and hell. sequel to Fallen Angels DomWa
1. Weather 'tis nobler

Here is the official first chapter. Firstly, thank you to everyone who put up with my antics on the preview (i'm owing-firstborn-son indebted to you) (shout out to syaz, blackcat686, and silver wildflame) , i wanted a second opinon because my fics have a bad habit of getting shoved down to the bottom of the metaphorical barrel. so yes! for those of you whom are new, this is the technical sequel to "Fallen Angels and the Season of Tears" but you can wait a while before reading it and only not understand one or two things.

format: switching selective third person POVs between Watanuki and Domeki with Yuko interludes.  
length of chapter: i'm going to be upfront; the length will vary depending on where the nicest natural breaks are.

and i will be handing out cyber cookies/plushies/random goodness to those of youse who can guess the mangas/movies/books i stol-crossed overed stuff from (partial cookies/plushies/goodness can be distributed too). mini cookies/plushies/goodness will be handed out if anyone can figure out how many days have passed for Wata-chan and Dome-kun.

so yes anyways, enough of me...ONWARDS (gets hit with heavy, blunt objects and KO's)

* * *

**Today** was probably one of the best days in generally unlucky Watanuki Kimihiro's life. Firstly, it was his birthday, which didn't really matter, but it meant Himawari-chan blessed him with a cake (so what if she kissed that guy on the cheek, it could've been her brother or something). Secondly, Dômeki was sick and didn't come to school, another bonus, although not as big a bonus as it would have been the year before. And for dessert, Yûko had given him the day off as she was visiting that fortune teller, something about needing a clearer view of her future, he didn't ask. The only bad thing was about his birthday was the day school started, but that wasn't so bad. And it was gorgeous outside, a brilliant blue sky and a warm, though thin, sun. So, he decided to take today to stock up on ingredients and treat himself to a western flourless chocolate cake. This required more chocolate that he had at home, as well as other ingredients that he didn't use too often, so a trip to the store was in order. 

"Happy birthday Watanuki-kun." A new voice said from behind him just as Watanuki was about to enter the mall. He turned, saw a shock of black hair, felt his chest clench, and his was out like a light.

* * *

"ACHOO!" Dômeki sneezed loudly on the way to the grocers' for some lemons and cola for his cold when he tripped over someone's legs. Turning to apologize to the beggar, he assumed, he got the shock of his life when he saw Watanuki propped limply against the building, legs scrunched uncomfortably; arms limp across his lap or hanging loosely down his side, both eyes open and eerily vacant. 

"Yûko-san," Dômeki said in greeting to the time space witch.

"Afternoon Dômeki, what has my part-timer gotten himself into this time?" she asked cheerfully, gripping Watanuki's chin in and forcing his lolling head up from where it lay slouching against the fence to her shop. When he didn't scream, or make any acknowledgement of the unwanted touch, Yûko's eyebrows contracted in confusion. When she saw the lazy stare and the almost milky quality of his eyes though, her face contorted into subtle fury.

"Dômeki, take Watanuki inside, Moro and Maru will take care of him. Don't leave until I get back." With that, she swirled off, storming into the night, leaving a sick boy coughing fitfully and another who was dead to the world.

* * *

Watanuki woke up suddenly and violently, sleep banished in an instant. The first thing he noticed was the world in focus, but the usual weight of his glasses was gone. To make sure, he reached up to the bridge of his nose, but felt resistance pull at his wrists. Looking down, he was shocked to see a thick velvet cord, like the ones used to rope off areas in museums, tied around his wrists. His eyes flashed to the other end of the rope, he found a ring with several other velvet ropes attached, although many were thinner than his. Looking around, Watanuki saw other such people walking at the plodding pace, most asleep, yet still walking. Then he noticed he was plodding along as well, and tried to stop, but his legs didn't obey him anymore. 

No one noticed his antics, so he stopped, opting for examining his restraints again. He inspected the rope around his wrists, which looked loosely looped but prevented any movement of his wrists and hands and wouldn't budge when he tried to nudge it off with his teeth. Looking back to the rope, he followed it to the ring then he noticed something new.

A single rope, the thinnest by far, led away from the herd of prisoners, following this rope, he discovered the other hand loosely held in the pale hand of a person a few inches shorter than Watanuki wearing a black divided hakama (skirt) and a nagajuban (under-kimono) without an outer kimono. A thin katana was stuck dangerously into this person's obi (belt) often coming close to cutting their long, black hair that fell just past their waist. As if sensing Watanuki's scrutiny, this person slowed and stopped, the other prisoners stopping too. Turning, Watanuki saw that this person was female.

"You're awake?" she asked, a dreamy expression painted on her face.

"Who are you?" he asked, not really expecting an answer.

"No one important." She said turning back and continuing her leisurely pace, not worrying about getting anywhere fast. Since Watanuki had no control over his legs, he followed the plodding, hypnotic pace, although his eyes never left the jailer's back.

* * *

Dômeki was wondering whether Yûko was going to come back anytime soon; as if in answer, she stormed in, visible upset, trailed by a man who was much more relaxed. 

"This is your charge?" he asked, looking at Dômeki from under a mop of blond hair.

"No, he is," Yûko said, pointing to Watanuki. The man immediately changed his focus, squatting and peering into Watanuki's eyes, lightly slapping his face, and generally making irritating motions that Watanuki remained unresponsive to.

"Definitely empty." The man said, standing up and dusting non-existent dust from his slacks and loose, and mostly unbuttoned, dress shirt.

"I'm sure Moro and Maru could have told me that. I just need to know _where_ his soul is." Yûko fumed, although her words caused a shiver to run down Dômeki's spine, this was the first time he had seen a body without a spirit instead of the other way around, and to be honest, he preferred the loose spirit.

"Okay, but it'll cost you Yûko." The man said, smiling coyly at the Time Space Witch.

"Fine, I won't put you out of business Tsing Li." Yûko said seriously.

"Okay, okay, I'll even add a chain for free." He said, bending down to Watanuki's level and placing two fingers on his forehead. There was a brief flash of light and when it cleared, Tsing Li had a long, silky length a material held tightly in his grasp. One end was wound loosely around Watanuki while the other end seemed to diffuse into the dust filled sunshine.

"He's drifting between the worlds right now, but with this, you should be able to follow that easily enough." He said, looking at Yûko, "But why bother, you can't leave this plane, and you're girls can't leave the shop."

"That's why I'm sending him." Yûko said, gesturing to Dômeki, much to his surprise.

"And what are you paying him?" Tsing Li asked, straightening and looking Yûko in the eye.

"I'm showing him the way to his true love." Yûko said, smiling. Dômeki coughed in surprise, hacked away for a few minutes.

"You didn't tell him." Tsing Li said flatly.

"Dômeki, could you please help me find Watanuki's spirit?" the time space witch asked, bending over so she was at his level. He just nodded and continued coughing.

"There, I did ask him." Yûko said, jumping back up.

"Weren't you just really angry?" Dômeki coughed out later, after Tsing Li left.

"Why would I be angry? I know I'll see Watanuki again." She said, walking into the kitchen to pour a glass of vodka twice the size of her usual starter.

* * *

Watanuki had actually dozed off at one point, but a sudden stop jerked him back into consciousness. The young woman had stopped at the edge of a great bridge, wider than a city block and stretching into the darkness. On the bridge, there was a heavy flow of traffic both ways and many stripped tents lined the edges. It was into one of these tents that they were lead into, remarkable because of a lack of vibrant colours; it was a plain white with a little gold and silver trim. 

Watanuki was shocked to see the inside of the tent looked like an entire house with a tall ceiling, complete with a small kitchen, an airy lounge, and large bed partially hidden by gauzy curtains. There were two people already in the tent, a sandy haired angel, his large wings tinted with a flashy gold in them, was drinking tea on the extensive lounge while a lump on the bed indicated another being.

"Power Sandaphon," Watanuki's captor said, approaching the long-haired angel, "I'm here to respond to your 'attractive souls' add." She said, nearing the angel and tugging her charges along.

"Wonderful, we still need a few more." The angel said, pouring another cup of tea for the black haired girl. As she accepted the seat and the tea with a slight bow, he moved to the pack of prisoners, checking each over like they were mystical cattle for sale. He was only a quarter of a ways through when he stopped and turned slowly to face Watanuki.

"I'll give you a gallon of soul seducer and a bottle of moon whisper for these three." He said, pointing to Watanuki, a young girl who was starting to wake up, and an old woman who twitched like she was living a nightmare.

"So generous of you." The captor said, finishing her tea, "would you like any of the others? I'm willing to part with them for a discount."

"I'll give you an all purpose sheath for two more." Sandaphon said, eyeing the naked blade nearly slicing the upholstery on the chair. He unhooked the five ropes from the leader ring and attached them to a tent pole.

"Wonderful doing business with you" the black haired girl said a few minutes later with a large flask, a small jeweled pendent filled with a liquid and a new leather sheath for her sickle in her possession.

"The pleasure is mine." Sandaphon said closing the flap after the last footprint had been made inside. He then rubbed out a rune in front of the door and drew a new one with the point of the sword hanging over the chair.

He opened the other side of the flap, sighing mournfully as a breath of what smelled like rosemary to Watanuki drifted into the tent. The angel walked over to the bed, sweeping aside the semi-transparent netting.

"Sameal…" he nearly cooed. An arm removed itself from the lump of blankets, looping around Sandaphon's neck, its twin joining soon after as the other pulled himself up.

"Where are we?" a drowsy voice asked.

"Heaven." Followed by a heavy sigh was heard. A thin angel seemingly drifted out of the curtains, silvery hair caught in silver tinted wings.

"Stupid hair." Watanuki heard softly as Sameal picked the errant hairs from their anchors in his down feathers. "Why did I grow it out again?"

"Where am I?" a shocked squeak filled the tent, alerting Sameal to the presence of the five slaves.

"New bait?" he asked Sandaphon as he slipped a sandy blond wig over his hair and wriggled into a flowing robe that added a good three inches to his shoulders.

"There are three more squads transferring to the sixth division; we're keeping that strong one."

"Good, we'll, shall we go dole out the goods?" he said, a rather sly smile perched on his face as he undid the velvet ropes, scaring the poor girl nearly to death.

* * *

"I have to go where?" Dômeki asked, starting hesitantly at the large circular pattern painted on the floor. 

"To Watanuki," Yûko said, leaning against the oversized brush she used to paint it.

"And he is where?" Dômeki questioned.

"I don't know." Yûko said.

"You don't know." Dômeki repeated, raising an eyebrow.

"Just follow the spirit chain." Monoko scolded,

"Chain?" Dômeki questioned again, referring to the silken scarf that threaded through his fist and disappeared about a three feet in front of him. Dômeki sighed and tried to grab past the vanished end, but his hand passed through where the cloth should be.

"Follow it how?" he asked the witch and the pork bun.

"Silly, only spirits can follow spirit chains." Monoko huffed irritably.

"But I'm not a spirit." Dômeki commented obviously.

"That's why we have this array." Yûko said, pointing down to the complex line system Dômeki was standing on.

"You're going to kill me so my I'm a free floating spirit?" he asked, slightly confused, hoping that that wasn't the answer to this dilemma. Yûko rolled her eyes.

"No, I'm just going to separate your spirit from your body, it'll be fine."

"Do I have too?" he asked,

"Do you want to save Watanuki?" she asked, glancing at the prone figure with the other end of the spirit chain wrapped around his shoulder loosely. Dômeki just sighed. Yûko's face broke into a grin and taking up her brush once again, she added the finishing storks to her design, causing everything to light up and gives Dômeki an odd sense of floating; then his vision went white from a blinding light.

* * *

Badum-ph. first chapter all squeakingly clean and done. hearts and eternal gratitude for reviews and hugs for anyone who made it this far. ta!

* * *


	2. in the mind to suffer

hello again, so, how's life? nobody guessed the crossovers (there were some by the way, subtle ones, but they were there) so i wasn't able to give out goodness (tears). so yes, for my challenge, i must up the ante! the first three people to guess the crossovers will get a preview to the next chapter. (this contest is only valid as long as this remains the last chapter). so guess peoples! you can still review if you can't guess any (ps. partial goodness!), i live on feedback. so yessss...

last time: wata-chan was kidnapped and sold to the army of heaven (ie. the chorus) (chorus of angels, get it? srry...) and dome-kun is going to find him. we left off with domeki's POV, so let's start!

pps. thanks to **blackcat666** for reviewing (here's your update) and a BIG thank you to **Danfred** for C2ing this! (another insentive to review, free publicity!)

* * *

"Morning boss." A whip thin woman said from her position on the couch. 

"Good morning to you too Antoinette." Sameal said as they entered the high ceiling room with a Modern feel but a Spartan finish. What was most irritating though, to Watanuki at least, was that everything was white.

"Hey boss, what's this new strategy I'm hearing about?" asked an eager black haired man from his position on the white counter in the break room.

"Actually, we've come to call a meeting; it might be time to rearrange the Chorus." Sandaphon said, smiling.

* * *

Dômeki forced on eye open, squinting against the light. When he discovered that there was no light, he opened both eyes and found himself…in the center of the design Yûko painted, in fact, the Time Space Witch was still there, leaning against her oversized paintbrush. In fact, the only differences in this scene were that Watanuki's 'spirit chain' continued on, disappearing out of sight through the paper door. Another thing was his own body was slumped on the floor. 

"What, did you think you would be transported to some magical plain reserved for spirits?" Yûko asked slyly. Dômeki sighed, agreeing with her logic even if he had been expecting a tunnel with a light at the end.

"What are you waiting for?" Monoko piped up, "Go find Watanuki!"

"Find Watanuki, find Watanuki!" Moro and Maru chimed in. The archer just sighed and placed on hand on the ribbon in front of the other, following the red scarf to its end at who knew where.

* * *

Watanuki was amazed at the sheer amount of people the pure white room accommodated. When Sandaphon had said he would 'call a meeting', the boy had thought maybe twenty people at most. But there were at least fifty people in the relatively small room; although many had chosen perches on the edge of a window that gave the room its damnable glow (those wings had to be good for something, no?). 

"You're probably wondering why I've called this meeting, and now I'm going to tell you." Sandaphon said with an authoritative yet friendly air, "Well, we've got a new way to deal with those filthy Fallen and Manifestations." There was a buzz throughout the room as the news spread; obviously there was a strong tradition that was being uprooted with these 'new tactics'.

"We're going to be using loose souls as bait." Sandaphon announced after the whispers had died down. This however, just raised another wave of rustling and whispers.

"Isn't that immoral?" a voice piped up. There were sounds of agreements, but Sandaphon's eyes hardened,

"We are at war Miss Mockingbird, I'd rather loose a few floating spirits to the dark than the innocence of the citizens of heaven." He replied, voiced iced over and hard as steal. The assembled angels quieted like they suffered a collective heart attack.

"Now, there as certain aspects of this new strategy…" Sandaphon continued, friendly once more. But the rest of his speech was lost to Watanuki as he realized that _he_ was a 'loose spirit' and his mind drifted to a conversation overheard about a war between heaven and hell.

* * *

Dômeki moved along the crowded streets, guided by the hand loosely grabbing the spirit chain. The sea of people in front of him subconsciously parted, not acknowledging him or questioning why they were squeezing around an empty space. Rather odd actually. But none of this really mattered to Dômeki, he was just here in spirit to save Watanuki again and he was marching single mindedly towards his goal. 

He continued in this manner, the spirit chain making few turns, until he was in front of an odd wooden structure built in a traditional western ranch style squeezed between two high-rises. Watanuki's spirit chain led into the building but as Dômeki passed through the veranda, the thick red scarf twitched violently in his hand then started fluttering in an almost agitated way. Dômeki tried clenching it tight, hoping to stop the wiggling that way, he didn't want to drop it and the shudders were getting rather bad.

"You're Yûko's boy, aren't you?" a voice said from the shadowy interior of the store (the open sign on the door alluded to the building's purpose). Squinting and peering inside, Dômeki was suddenly graced with the appearance of a shaggy haired man jumping almost out of the shadows.

"Tsing Li?" Dômeki inquired, remembering the man from Yûko's shop.

"That's a direct connection to your friend's soul." He said, avoiding the question entirely, "It reflects his emotions, and some say that the chain can affect their mood. The portals are in the attic." He finished with a sly smile before the darkness of the shop swallowed him again.

Once Dômeki stepped into the shop proper, the door snapped shut behind him, giving him a nudge into the semi-darkness occasionally penetrated by a shaft of weak sunlight passing through a thin curtain. But the thick dust in the air trapped the light, allowing only enough to see faint outlines of furniture and the ghost of objects five feet away. Following the spirit chain again, Dômeki made his way up a flight of stairs that nearly groaned even though as a spirit, he technically had no weight to stress the ancient construction. Oddly, the stair ended at the ceiling, but the spirit chain seemed to pass through it, the first time it had displayed something of this nature. Taking a bit of a wild shot in the dark, Dômeki set his shoulder near where the chain disappeared through the ceiling and heaved. Sure enough, thin lines formed in the hardwood and soon, a showering of dust rained down as the trapdoor was flung open.

Since breathing was optional, Dômeki wasn't chocked by the sheer amount of dust in the attic. If he had thought that Yûko's was dusty, then this place was the inside of a vacuum cleaner. But that blasted spirit chain had led him up there, so up he went. The attic was primarily filled with boxes of many sizes, but a few what-nots and larger furniture were peeking out from under drop clothes.

The chain however, led toward the back of the attic, away from the large windows that spread light more thickly in this room. Following it, Dômeki soon found himself in front of three full length mirrors. One, on the left, was oval and the frame looked a dove grey under the dust. On the far right, a rectangular mirror stood, hard black or red angles jutting out of the dust that covered the frame. The one in the middle was warped, it might have once been square or round, but was now morphed into a asymmetrical shape, the frame, burnt so the original colour was unknown, was ill fitted to the glass and had cracks in it.

But neither of the latter mirrors mattered to Dômeki, the thick red chain led directly into, or through rather, the white framed mirror, so he walked up to it. Like before, the chain went right through, but then it twitched violently, on only one side of the mirror. So Dômeki did what he had been doing for the past few hours, he placed one fist farther along the scarf, and another, fully expecting to hit glass. But he didn't, and then he slipped fully through the mirror, and it swallowed him whole with barely a ripple.

* * *

Watanuki had been placed between the thin angel, Antoinette, who was nursing a gun equally as slim and a burly yet good hearted male, introduced as Shylock, who specialized in passive magic (which he admitted with a bit of embarrassment) in the wagon, near the back. Both were laughing as they stowed their supplies and settled into the wagons as the largest birds were attached to the wagons. 

Around them, similar caravans were being prepared, each holding about a dozen bodies, usually they were all angels except on or two shackled spirits, most still in an unconscious state. Sameal got up then at the end of the courtyard nearest the gate in the white stone wall surrounding the beaten dirt field and waited. As everyone settled into their seats, an eerie silence fell over the crowd; even the blinding white plumed birds that pulled the carts were silent.

"Alright," Sameal started, "everyone knows where they're going?" he asked, nods and quiet affirmative statements were made. "Then we'll get started, Squad 15, you go first, then Squad 12…" this sort of thing continued, slowly but effectively, for another five minutes. The wagon Watanuki was in was the last to leave, and met with Sameal at the gate, where he stopped the wagon briefly.

"Good luck troops, and Sandaphon, make sure you bring back our best and brightest in one piece."

"I'll do my best Sameal," Sandaphon said from his perch at the front of the wagon. Quite a few angels were grinning or giggling as they moved out, having a higher up calling you the best was a good ego booster. As they rolled out on to the sort of grassy road suspended in a disgustingly perfect sky blue which nearly fell off into black about a half yard in front of the wagon.

_You'd better come back bastard, I need you..._ drifted on the wind, although judging by the looks of it, neither Antoinette nor Shylock had heard this, just Watanuki. Peering back, Watanuki saw an angel gazing out of the gate, looking like a sweetheart watching her solider go off to war.

* * *

Dômeki had been traveling blindly for a bit because the blinding white of this world was well…blinding. But then he felt something bump against him and he dared to peek open, this was the first time he had felt a physical sensation since being separated from his body. The man who had bumped into him was a drowsy looking person wearing a crisp, if not grossly outdated, Allies uniform. 

Glancing up ahead, Dômeki saw a white marble staircase leading to a pair of white gates with a mother of pearl sheen. The long scarf of Watanuki's spirit chain dodged between the bars of the gate, but there were hundreds of souls between Dômeki and the gates. There was a single desk set up near the gates, and a single man, correction angel, was letting one person through at a time. At the current rated, Dômeki really would be dead if he waited until it was his turn. But if Watanuki was past the gates of heaven, this was too cliché to be anything else, was he too late? Was Watanuki really past the point of no return? Oh well, if he was, Dômeki would still get him back.

He would have just run along side the line and slipped through the huge holes in the gates, but the staircase wasn't that wide; only three people would be able to squeeze on. While he could have easily maneuvered his way through the crowd, it would take too long and he would probably be rejected to the end of the line, which grew every second. He looked at the scarf, his mind shifting through possible ways to use it in his escape. Unbidden, an image of a horrible western action/adventure movie came to mind, "Indiana Jones" where he swings through over a pit…

What the hell. Holding tight to the spirit chain, Dômeki jumped over the edge. As he fell, he could hear gasps from above as he fell, suffering whiplash when the spirit chain snapped taut. Pulling himself up quickly, Dômeki made it back up to the stairway in record time (archer's arms). Except this time, he was at the front of the line, near where the spirit chain had caught on the gates. Dashing the last final feet, he slipped through the huge gaps in the bars, much to the dismay of the record keeper stationed at the desk and the crowds waiting to get into heaven.

* * *

After five 'days' of travel (meaning the sky had darkened five times), they had entered the flat wastelands full of dust and the occasional scrub. There was no sun, the sky was just there, a flat blue a shade to dark to be the real sky. During all this time, Watanuki had remained firmly placed between Shylock and Antoinette. The latter of the pair had taken a bit of a shine to the wandering spirit, often trying to include him in conversations and making sure no one disrespected him. 

"You remind me of my little brother," she replied when asked why she cared for a spirit that was little more than the piece of meat in their devil trap. Watanuki himself didn't understand why that mattered, but apparently, for her, the bonds of family were very important to her. Which was very good for him as the rest of the squad didn't give a damn about him and would have probably have begun bulling him without the seemingly harmless angel's protection.

About a week after departure from heaven, Watanuki felt his heartstrings tug, but he was too worried about the nausea building that had been building in his gut since they entered the wastelands, he wanted to puke so badly. The spirits, no longer deterred from their treat by a crusty mortal shell, were sending out waves of delight as they raced to get to their candy.

"Shylock, Darren, we need neutralizing circles if you please." Sandaphon said, stopping the wagon, a toothy grin more appropriate for a vampire than an angel on his face. The cart bounced slightly as the massive Shylock got off, followed by a thinner angel who looked too young to be fighting. They quickly began drawing in the dirt, bright lines following the wake of their fingers in the dirt. Watanuki swallowed hard, trying to stop himself from heaving whatever was in his stomach all over the floor of the wagon.

"Don't worry, I'll look after you." Antoinette said, hoisting her gun onto her shoulder. The two angels on the ground finished the design with a bright flare of light. After he had blinked the spots from his eyes, Watanuki could only see two changes. Firstly, the angels had spontaneously changed from whatever white outfit they had been wearing (ranging from summer dresses to snow suits) into plain white gi's of varying style (judogi, karategi, jujutsgi, there were even some kendo outfits mixed in) and some angels had shed their wings. The second difference was the impeding darkness gathering on the edges of the horizon. Ghost hopefully, evil manifestations most likely.

They rushed towards the wagon full of angels at an impossible speed, but stopped abruptly, like they hit a glass wall. It was only then that one could get a good look at these creatures, and then realize why they never wanted to see them again. They were primarily either sky blue or black, with small bodies and grotesque limbs, sticking out of main bulk like a child's attempt at human form using sticks and mud. Everything else about them varied except that they were all inappropriately mismatched. For example, razor sharp, three-inch fangs poked out of swollen human lips, fat tails with grinning jaws snapped, multi-faced bug eyes stared out a fatty pig's snout; all manner of monstrosity was witnessed.

Some of them began falling forward through the shield, crumbling into a fine ash. Beside Watanuki, Antoinette fired her gun with a loud report. This was the last straw for Watanuki, who dived down, just in time too, as he ducked, a wave of guts nearly spewed out of the manifestations closet to the wagon, hitting anyone not fast enough to duck.

"Antoin." Someone groaned, trying to wipe black blood and guts off his face.

"Sorry," she replied too cheerfully.

"Don't waste bullets Antoinette." Sandaphon said from the front.

"Yessir." Antoinette chirped back, firing another shot. "You alright?" she asked, looking down to where Watanuki had huddled.

"No," he said plainly, daring to poke his head above the protection of the wagon. He was shocked to say the least to fine the last of the manifestations turning to ash as they passed through the barrier, or at least where the barrier would be if the entire area wasn't covered in gore.

"I told you not to waste bullets." Sandaphon said although his vicious grin had only increased with the amount of gore. Then, a high pitched whining spun through the air. Sandaphon's grin was wiped out in an instant as he and everyone else ducked. Just in time too, as the second after they ducked, huge chunks were torn out of the top of the sides of the wagon. Almost immediately after, another whining was heard, this time coming from the opposite direction. Everyone jumped, Watanuki following their lead. This time chunks were torn out of the bottom of the wagon. A howling was heard in the distance, and this time peeking out of the new hole, Watanuki was able to spy a growing darkness on the horizon again, this time though, it kept low to the ground and was moving at a slower pace than the manifestations.

_Antoinette!_ drifted over the air in Sandaphon voice with a commanding tone. The requested angel aimed carefully, the fired her rifle. From his point of view this time, Watanuki was able to see the round ricochet off thin air, turned red from the friction of air on lead. Suddenly, there was a flash of bright red light and miniature fireworks seemed to explode.

"They have van Weber." Someone commented,

"Damnit that means that…" Darren started, but was cut off by a strangled sort of choke as his body was consumed by…words? The rest of the angels took the sky, Antoinette and a few others releasing a barrage of bullets in the direction of the dark mass nearing them. Watanuki saw Antoinette try to get back down to help him, but she was kept in the air by Shylock. Then book-worm like creatures invaded his vision, stuffing themselves up his sleeves, down his throat, and the blanketed his eyes, throwing him into darkness.

* * *

so there we go, another installment of Life in a Dictorial Eden and an Anarchic Utopia, (falls on knees) please, please please please review! (sobbing) remember my blantant bribery and fun contestiee!

well, ta lovelies, the next chapter might come out in a few days, if it's done, but if not, Merry Kwanzachristmakah, a Joyous Teng Diwsodas and a Happy Zagnalia (don't you just love the butchering of religious holidays for the sake of political correctness?) (all holidays parts are taken from wikipedia's winter holiday season page)


	3. The slings and arrows

well ladies and gents, i'm not dead yet! it's been a while, hasn't it, and well, i'm really sorry bout that. so yes, APOLOGY, but i've been busy typing up the pages and pages and pages of story i have in my notebook. so yes! part 3 in this story, and still, no one has bothered to try to find all the cross overs. there's a pretty blatant one in here, and if you can't see, you haven't read enough CLAMP. so yes, forwards!

Disclaimer: wow, i totally forgot about this. well, as you can guess, i don't own the characters or places other people have invented. i just have fun puppetting their lives. please don't steal my characters (not that you'd want to) and my places (i work hard on them) so yes, forwards! for real!

* * *

Dômeki felt very out of place among the white, and that was saying something as he was wearing a white shirt. But compared to the glowing pure white that made up…everything practically, his shirt seemed nearly yellow, and his black pants stood out like a flower among weeds. His height didn't help either as he was maybe a good head taller than the rest of the white clad people.

The only breaks in the monotonous white were large posters with lines like "Destroy the Evil", "Beware the Devil Sympathizers", and "Heaven Needs You". Lovely, he was illegally in heaven during a war. So he followed a routine that had become a little too familiar, placing one hand in front of the other and marching his way along the spirit chain. That plan had gotten him out of many interesting situations already, but this time, something different happened.

"Hey you! Stop!" someone yelled, looking back, Dômeki saw a woman with white feathered wings on his back trying to catch his attention. Dômeki really just didn't care what he had to say, so he turned back around and continued following the spirit chain.

"I said stop!" the angel called again, sounding closer. Dômeki warily turned around, solidly knotting the spirit chain around his wrist just incase. He heard someone _very_ close behind yell in protest to the shoving angel, so without warning, Dômeki took off as fast as he could, still following the scarf of material weaving between the citizens of heaven. He heard the angel yell loudly and chanced a glance back, glad to see that his pursuer had fallen back.

As it turned out, that glance was the worse thing he could have done because when he turned back, he was just in time to see a broad, white covered chest of steel, as he found out after hitting it and consequently loosing consciousness.

* * *

When the squashed characters had completely blackened his gaze that was when it started getting really bad for Watanuki. Memories started playing, hundreds at a time, flashing behind his eyelids. Some were good, but they were short and were quickly replaced with horrible memories. The overall effect was one of discord and chaos, forcing too much information on Watanuki. He could feel his mind start to mutate, probably liquefying. Then suddenly, someone stepped _out_ of one of his memory. Even though he had never seen anyone remotely like this boy with cat ears, Watanuki was thankful to have something to focus on. 

"Eh? You're not an angel." The cat-boy said matter-of-factly with a thick Eastern Europe accent. He stared oddly at Watanuki before something caught his eye.

"Eh? What's this?" he asked himself, reaching behind Watanuki, he pulled out an irregular box, through which a memory played. It was a recent one, there were angels in it. It was the time that he heard that odd line "_You'd better come back bastard, I need you"_ he had heard just before they had started traveling into the wasteland. He didn't notice at the time, but looking back, he saw the almost electric eye contact between Sameal and Sandaphon.

"You can hear Angel Whispers?" he asked, cocking his head to one side. "Blitz, you can lay off this one." He said, looking up.

"Alright" a slimy voice said, wafting through his skull like paint fumes. The jigsaw of images trapped in his head began falling apart then, turning into individual words again. Slowly, the word returned to normal, or at least, what qualified as normal. The cat boy was still there, as was the seemingly lifeless remains of Darren, the other passive magic angel. The angels had vanished, although the amount of loose feathers floating around testified to a rough escape. The dark mass that was shooting at them earlier had neared, considerable, and they were now individual persons.

The cat boy was waving to them, and from his vantage point of wagon floor, Watanuki got a good view of pale stomach as his army shirt (short already) rode up a good three inches, exposing the bottom of his ribs. But what was odd about that (beside the fact that the outfit made him look like some kinky whore) was that it was a light tan. A quick look confirmed that yes; the other side was wearing totally black, so where did this odd creature fit? From what he had seen the sides of this war were clearly labeled in black and white. In the time that it took Watanuki's recovering mind to process this, the mass had regrouped around the abandoned wagon.

"Only one this time, you're timing's off Blitz." a painfully average man said, leaning on his musket and focusing on the corpse of Darren, he voice with the fainted slur, sounded like the cat-boy's.

"I can only attack from the ground van Weber." The slimy voice said, coming from a thin woman with long black hair in a high collared, floor length black dress, "You should have fired faster so they couldn't take off."

"Is someone going to kill it or are we just going to sit here gabbing?" someone called from the back of the thin crowd; there were only about twenty enemy there from what Watanuki could see. Just then, a tall man wearing a long lab coat specked with stains and a tight black outfit underneath pushed his way through.

"I would prefer him alive gentlemen," he said, w's more like v's, adding "and ladies" after Blitz coughed.

"The angel or the spirit good Doctor?" a young man at the back asked.

"The angel of course" the doctor said, "I have no use of spirits."

"Good, then I shall claim the spirit." The man said, pushing forward, nearing Watanuki with a drooling grin full of fine, razor sharp teeth.

"Wait! Wait!" the cat boy said, trying to stop the man, "he can hear Angel Whispers!" he cried in vain.

"Butler, stop, Beelzebub would want this." The Doctor said, placing a hand on the advancing demon's shoulder. Butler hissed at him but held his ground.

"How are we going to get them back?" Blitz asked her voice grating against his ears.

"Fifty two." The Doctor called in a sing-song voice, and from there very back of the group came a hulking figure covered head to toe by a draped black outfit pushed to the front. The wide and tall form was hitched to the wagon where the bird had once been before it was freed when the angels had retreated. The demons took this opportunity to climb into the wagon, filling it until it creaked from being overload by almost an additional five people than the recommended dozen. Then, creaking louder with every step, the wagon started moving as the enormous Fifty Two dragged the wagon back in the demons had come from.

* * *

Dômeki woke up to a blinding light. He quickly shut his eyes again. He waited for a few moments before trying again. He slowly opened his eyes, letting them adjust to the blinding white of the cell. He understood that heaven was supposed to be beautiful and pure, but this was insane! The first thing he checked after his eyes had adjusted to the brightness of his cell, as the bare, low ceiling room could be considered, was that the spirit chain was still firmly held in his hand. Luckily it was; the hasty knot he had tied while running had held. 

"You're awake," someone said from outside the silvery bars of the cell, snapping his head to the proper angle, Dômeki saw the same wispy blonde that had chased him in the streets.  
"I was worried that running into Kudo would have put you in a coma." She, judging from the voice, said as the brick wall of an angel came up. He opened the door and practically dragged Dômeki out of the cell,

"our Master wanted to force you awake to question you, but someone mentioned how a mind is stripped of memories in a proper coma and can only regain them after a natural awakening, so they left you were." The shorter angel babbled, as they traveled down the hall, passing several other cells filled with bat winged creatures, some with human bodies, other a mismatched body parts from different and completely unrelated creatures, and the odd angel with blackened wings.

"Then of course, no one expect you to be out for three days," the angel laughed. Three days! He was three days farther from finding Watanuki.

"…and oh! Here you are." The angel said, opening a glass door, one of many embedded in the wall. Kudo, the larger, stronger angel, shoved him inside a room similar to his cell except for a mirror instead of bars made up one wall. There, sitting in the room, was another angel, this one with long white hair although she was still young physically.

"Please sit." She said, pointing to the chair across from her tucked into the white table. Gingerly, Dômeki sat, back ramrod straight in the chair, hands pressed into his black slacks.

"It was reported a wayward spirit entered through the Gates of Heaven illegally some days ago using….unorthodox methods." She started in a clipped, clinical voice,

"After we were alerted of this, Angel Kohaku was sent to intercept the soul, but arrived too late." Dômeki sat there, his face schooled into a blank slate, which is what was basically reflected on the inside, seeing as he had no clue where this was going.

"After Angel Kohaku had tracked down the soul, she called out, presumably causing the soul to try and run, only to be apprehended and contained by Angel Kudo." The angel said, steepling her hands,

"Those are the facts, that is the Truth. Now, what are you?" she asked in all seriousness. Dômeki just stared blankly back at her.

"How did you cut the line?" she tried again only to receive the same no answer,

"How long have you been dead?" she asked, a slightly irritated tone to her voice. Once again, she received a blank stare from the prisoner. The angel stared at the boy in front of her and let out a little sigh, this wasn't going to be an easy day.

* * *

To say that Watanuki was scared shitless was an understatement. He was currently crammed into the wagon, behind the driver's seat, against the lifeless form of Darren. The pre-teen angel's eyes were wide and unseeing and filmed over. He also flopped lightly when the wagon jerked, and it was honestly quite freaky. And too make matters worse; the cat-boy had taken to sprawling over his legs, snoozing with his head in the Doctor's lap, who was absently petting him. 

"I wonder if we can get any more Chorus Squads," Butler said, shining his monocle.

"I'm game, if there's one nearby." Van Weber said, glancing over at the twenty something from under the rim of his square cut hat.

"I suppose it couldn't hurt." Blitz said, there were several other sounds of agreement from the rest of the party.

"Thirteen," the Doctor asked, prodding the cat-boy, "could you please go see where the closest angel squad is?" he asked, the boy yawned, then flickered like a badly tuned television for a few seconds.

"If we travel a bit in this direction" the cat-boy said, pointing towards Fifty Two, "we should meet another one of these wagons." He said.

"Shall we try out our new Angel Whisperer than?" Blitz asked, voiced greasy, smiling a smile of very sharp teeth in Watanuki's direction.

* * *

"Take him back to his cell." The angel snarled after many fruitless hours trying to pry information out of her reluctant guest, every hint of composure lost in the frustrating silence. Kudo answered, dragging Dômeki away back to his cell. After he left, several of the demons across the hallway moved forward. 

"And what may you be, darling?" a grotesquely beautiful, naked (excluding scraps or carefully placed cloth), woman said from the cell directly across from him. He stared blankly at the wall, barely giving her a black glance.

"Yessss, tell usss," Pleaded a second pornographic lady but with long blonde hair instead of purple, coming up beside the first to lounge against the bars.

"Ha-ha! Somehow I think I'm more his type." Laughed a toned man from the next cage in a similar state of undress, Dômeki gave him a similar look as the first woman.

"Is he a deeeeemon?" someone asked from the row above him as a bulbous head on a thin neck snaked down from the cell above.

"He issssssssn't angel I don't think." Said the blonde.

"A soul maybe," a skinny man with a tight build and shiny black hair said from the other side of the second cell, Dômeki couldn't help but stare at this one, he was looked too much of Watanuki if he had been left to the wilderness for four days. A quick check of the spirit chain extinguished those hopes through; it would be leading down the hall if he could follow. But it didn't stop Dômeki from hearing the demon add,

"Maybe he's destined to be a demon though," as his lip curling as he saw the stare.

* * *

Watanuki blinked away from the not too gentle jabbing of a musket butt in his gut. 

"Wake up, get to work." van Weber said, giving Watanuki a final, and harder, jab, leaving him gasping for air he didn't need.

"How many angels can you hear?" Blitz said in a two toned voice, one her normal slimy tone and the other boarding on a baritone.

_Boss said we couldn't speak, but he didn't say anything about Whispering_. A female voice said,

_You little minx, there are demons out there!_ Another voice, male, Whispered back. Watanuki chewed his lip, reluctant to rat these two out.

"He hears something." Thirteen sing-songed. Van Weber hit Watanuki with his musket again, scowl pasted on his face. Watanuki just grunted, cuing another jab to the gut, this one higher, probably bruising a rib.

"T-Two," Watanuki gasped

_Shut up you two!_ An older male said, Watanuki pursed his lips again and received another jab from van Weber's gun, same place, more ferocity, he could practically hear the bone crack.

"Three." He whined in barely above a whisper.

_Are you willing to risk this squad for a few quiet moments?_ The third voice said

"T-Twelve." Watanuki finished, remembering how large Squad 1 was.

"Perfect." Blitz said in her odd two toned voice, eyes glazing over with lines and lines of text that spiraled out from her cross legged form in the wagon. The scraggily lines swirled off into the distance, suddenly, a wagon full of angels appeared as if from a heat mirage. All but one was trapped in a vortex of swirling font and blood as they tried to claw the letters off. The lone survivor, probably the first voice, was trying to gain height on her foe while screaming in pain and despair. From the corner of his eye, Watanuki saw van Weber raise his musket and click off the safety as silent as possible. Then, with an almighty blast, the musket's barrel sparked to life and the angel's head exploded.

The Doctor whistled and jauntily called out "Seventy Five!" and what looked like an overgrown Russian Wolfhound bounded out, hair matted, nails long and hardened into twisted black claws, and an slightly disproportionate snout, too long and too full of too long teeth for the already huge dog. The beast bounded up to the wagon, snapping at the panicking bird strapped to the front.

Almost too gently for such a savage looking beast, he picked up the fallen angel, even as she began to fade into dust, propping her on the side of the wagon before ripping her wings off in a flurry of feathers. In the cart, spirals of angel dust was floating into the air, although racking sobs could be heard even from this distance as Fifty Two pulled the cart steadily towards the wreckage.

"I didn't think he would work," Butler said, "imagine how many more angels we'll get."

"Oh I can't wait to get back to the lab." The Doctor cooed happily. Watanuki just stared, realizing this was the first of many angel massacres he would lead these devils too.

* * *

"You want us to do what?" the vaguely humanoid head dangling in front of Dômeki's cage. 

"I want you to help me escape." Dômeki said straight faced, glad for this breakthrough after nearly twelve hours of negotiations.

"And how do you propose we do that?" asked the first, longhaired woman,

"These cages are charmed against escape from every life form, demon, angel, or spirit." The tanned man said, flicking the thin bars of his cage an instigating a spark of blue magic.

"I might be able to purge the spells out?" Dômeki said, his mind easily making the leap from exorcising spirits to exorcising spells.

"Are you sure you can do that?" the head said skeptically, eyebrow twitching towards its fading hairline.

"No" Dômeki said honestly and bluntly, "but I can try". He grasped the bar lightly, ignoring the "Halleluiah, he can try," someone muttered from across the aisle. In his head, he gently 'pushed' against the bars of his cage. Nothing happened. He tried again with similar results. Slightly annoyed, he tried again, but this time he imagined he was catapulting the energy like an arrow from a bow into the bar around his hands.

Dômeki felt something give way, which seemed like a good thing. Opening his eyes, he found that the sections of bar he held in his hand had broken off in his hands. Silence engulfed the five or six cells in the general vicinity.

"That's a first." The head said moving to examine the hole in the bars.

"Can you do that for the entire wall or jusst what'ss in your handssssss?" the second woman asked, interested, leaning as far out of her cell as the bars allowed. Dômeki didn't answer, but tried again, the same technique, except this time, he didn't grip the bar nor did he focus all his energy into one spot, choosing instead to send a ram of power into the wall of spells. Oddly, in his mind's eye, the spells seemed to glow and almost unnatural blue grey. But he didn't really care, seeing as this approach worked as well, although he winced at the short high pitched squeak, like a door hinge, the metal made as the magic was forced out of it.

"If you can do that for my cage too, I'll make that fuss you need to escape." The first man said, Dômeki nodded this time focusing his energy from a meditative squat as he couldn't reach the bars physically without breaking his restraints, something he wasn't prepared to do least it alert the guards who had a small lookout near the interrogation rooms. After another door hinge squeal, the two women squealed to be released too, unconsciously, maybe, bouncing more than they should with glee. The head thing demanded to be released next (he turned out have a stiff legged (ending in sharp claws) body like a black teddy bear and little black bat wings with a long, pointed tail), and soon, everyone was demanding to be released. Not really seeing the harm, Dômeki freed whoever he could, frankly not caring what form they took.

The guards arrived soon after the tenth cell had been cracked, not including Dômeki's resulting in maybe twenty demons and angels swirling, cat vaulting, and generally making as big a nuisances of themselves as possible. Among the chaos, the partially nudes had sprouted wings and tails and had taken off, except for the second male one, who swooped in and grabbed Dômeki around the gut, hoisting him up in the air even as the larger boy was breaking another set of spells. They crashed through high window,

"Thanks a lot kid," the demon said, ignoring the pointing crowds below and dodging the arrows that flew his way, "I was nearly up for my shot on the firing range," he said down as, with every powerful stroke of his wings, he bore them both into the wilderness surrounding this portion of heaven. Then something unusual happened, the spirit chain, which, up until now, had remained still, simply leading him were he needed to go.

Now, it twisted viciously in his grasp, nearly cutting of the circulation where he had looped it around his wrist. Then, it stilled, but now, instead of curving taut around the next turn, it dipped gently towards the ground before leveling off about a hundred feet bellow them, disappearing into the murky air above the wastelands. To say Dômeki was worried was an understatement, the only time he had heard of clouds like these was during the Angel-san episode, and he knew how that would have ended for Watanuki if he had been left alone.

* * *

so yesssss, that's thisssss inssssstalmet. toodlesssss till next time.

a not very ssssnake-y authoressssssss.


	4. of outrageous fortune

nee how amigos! here, for your viewing pleasure, is the next installment of...what did i call this again?

thanks to **WingedSerpent**-san, and no, i haven't read/watched Mushishi, although from what i could gather, evil manifestations are kinda like shimi, only spindle-y-er and nasty-er. I will watch Mushishi as soon as possible though, sounds intresting, but i haven't had the time between Pride and Prejudice and the Illiad.

Disclaimer: book 8 came out! i own a copy! i know someone who owns the movie! does that count?

* * *

They had been traveling for a few more miles, the second covered in what seemed to be angel corpses being pulled by the now listless white bird, its feathers slowly staining black from where the doctor had attached a small black box onto its head and the wires and cables had firmly anchored themselves into the animal. Overhead, rolling black clouds had invaded the once painfully artificially plain sky. 

"Oi Schrödinger," van Weber said, to which the cat-eared Thirteen responded, jerked from his nap under the snoozing Doctor by the call, "check to see if that's the Flyer?" he asked, pointing to the clouds.

Thirteen, or Schrödinger, gave a mock salute before doing the odd flicker thing for barely a fraction of a second.

"Yup, that's the Flyer." Schrödinger said, nodding exaggeratedly. At the news, van Weber took aim at the cloud and fired straight up. The clouds closed neatly behind the bullet, and a faint crackle was heard like a small firework going off. The rapidly moving cloud slowed, finally stopping just behind them. Then, with the sound of nails on a chalkboard and rust being ground together, something huge, wooden, stained black, and covered in barnacles descended gracefully from the clouds like a stately queen proudly approaching her guillotine. Finally, a huge, rotting hulk had floated down from the clouds and was resting a good ten feet off the ground.

"Ahoy Berserkers!" a sailor on the ship by the bow (front) where the chipped paint proclaimed the ship to be the Vleiger.

"Hallo Fleiger!" Blitz called out, waving up to the distant sailor at least a hundred feet above them, "Requesting permission to board this fine vessel from Captain Vanderdeck!" she added in a loud voice that was sure to carry. The sailor disappeared for a few minutes, then some shouting was heard as van Weber and the Doctor (who had awoken from his nap) grabbed the sides of the wagon, a little while later, what looked like tentacles made from shadow grabbed the wagons and dragged them aboard, sending everyone not holding on (except Blitz, Butler, and Schrödinger) bouncing around their constraints. Watanuki, saved from toppling over the edge by a firm grip on his rather tattered jacket, thought he saw a body slid off the second wagon and disintegrate into that fine powder on impact.

Then he was suddenly on the deck, as were the rest of the group, Berserkers, and the comatose angels as the wagon was broken into pieces by the shadowy appendages and absorbed into the deck. A cross between a squawk and a screech sounded just over the railing and a flurry of white feathers matted with a grey liquid probably signified the end of that brain washed bird.

"Welcome to my ship" the man at the wheel near the stern, who had a similar accent as Blitz, but without the slime, said before barking out orders to the rest of his crew. He had a shaggy white beard on his face and his body encased in a long black duster more appropriate to the American West than the Golden Age of Piracy. Blitz quickly vanished, followed by Butler and the rest of the Berserkers.

"Take care of our Angel Whisperer would you Doc?" van Weber asked, as he too left, climbing almost awkwardly up the rigging to the crow's nest.

"Seventy Five, Thirteen," he said in a sing song voice that still conveyed an order, "make sure he doesn't escape." The Doctor turned on his heel and walked below deck too, his five minions following. Watanuki gulped audible as Seventy Five gave him a leery doggy grin, showing gums and Thirteen clamped onto his arm and pulled him hard enough that the material of his abused jacket started tearing, showing white shirt. Together, along with the brick wall of Fifty Two behind them, they pulled Watanuki down into the belly of the ship.

* * *

"You want me to fly into the sea?" the demon, Incubi Maxwell apparently, said.

"That's the sea?" Dômeki asked, pointing to the dark clouds that didn't resemble any sea that he knew.

"You don't know the sea?" Maxwell exclaimed, shocked.

"Those are clouds," Dômeki said, stating the obvious.

"There aren't no clouds in the Wastes," Maxwell said, shaking his head at Dômeki's ignorance, "those 'clouds' are the sea that the Dread Navy sails on, and judging by the size of this sucker, it's a man-of-war." Dômeki didn't say anything; he just started pulling the slack off the spirit chain. It took a good ten minutes to pull all the slack in, but when it did, he was surprised to see that they were already flying in the direction the thick red scarf would have led him.

"Where are we going?" Dômeki asked,

"We're going to that man-of-war and hoping that it's my ship, the Vleiger."

* * *

_**a brief interlude**_

A woman walked down the street towards her husband's family shrine, the second home to her son, who had been missing for nearly a week now. As she passed an empty lot, she stopped, doing a double take. Where there was usually an empty lot, today, there was an odd house squatting in a perfectly manicured lawn. Even though she knew that her husband and father-in-law were waiting for her, she couldn't help but take hesitant step after hesitant step up the carefully maintained path until she had reached the door.

A small, intricately designed "open" sign perched in the window and as the lady reached out to grab the door knob, the barricade opened suddenly, sweeping back silently. Wide eyes of two precious little girls stared at her, anxiety quivering in their bodies, before they turned abruptly and dashed away, the blue haired one's pigtails flowing behind her. The woman took a few steps inside, noting the layers of dust covering most of the surfaces and dancing in the air. However, she still felt that pull that made her enter this shop in the first place.

Following the footprints of the girls in the dust, soon, the lady came to a lounge of a short, with large bay windows and a low table and a couch, the elegant thin type. On that couch was sprawled a long, lean woman with even longer black hair dressed in a dark coloured dress with a regal aura about her lazy form, like a pedigree, prize winning cat.

"Welcome to shop," she said in a smooth voice like rich velvet, "I've been wondering when one of your family would arrive here Dômeki-san."

* * *

...naw, won't end it here...

* * *

To say that the doctor was barbaric was like saying that the sunset was purple, true, but completely inadequate. Schrödinger and Seventy Five led Watanuki into what seemed like the lowest level of the barge. But the interior behind the worn wooden door with a tarnished brass "66" nailed to the door, although the second six had come loose and now flopped as a nine, swaying to the rhythm of the floor beneath it. On the other side of the door though, was a large room with a low ceiling, tiled from floor to ceiling and missing the tell-tale sway of a ship.

The room was lit with a sickly yellow green glow from spluttering florescent tubes covered in thick bars. Inside the room there were many tables full of half dissected corpses of things with wings, fur, fins, tails, horns, and any other appendages imaginable. Lodged in the center of the room was an island topped with a steely slab. On it was a short figure with angel wings.

The Doctor was hovering over it, spraying it in water to remove the blood, grime, and ink splattered all over the back. Near by was another table loaded with angel bodies and the wings stolen from that dying angel by Seventy Five, still oozing silver blood. As the misfit band of prisoner and jailers neared the island, Watanuki could hear the Doctor mumbling to himself.

"I'm going to make you so pretty!" he squealed at the faintly breathing corpse, cutting the back open along the spine, revealing white nerve fibers oozing silver blood.

"Put it in your cage for now Thirteen." The Doctor called out when the cat-boy entered his vision. Snapping a mock salute, he dragged Watanuki towards the back of this large room and into a low ceiling, but large cage, furnished with several large, fluffy pillows and blankets. Immediately after the door shut behind them, the large lock on the door clicked shut, locking them in. Turning to Schrödinger, Watanuki was surprised that he was already asleep, sprawled across a pillow, blanket covering his legs and a worn, threadbare cat plush firmly gripped under his chin. A loud, shrill squeal and screams of pain filled the air, causin Watanuki to whirl around in shock. However, what he saw shocked him even more and lodged the rapid birth of the nausea that would haunt him for the rest of his time aboard the Fleiger.

He had just witness the Doctor take a rotating saw to the back of one of the angels, cutting off the wings. The metallic blood sprayed up and out, staining the already spotted front of the Doctor's lab coat. A few seconds after the remains of the angel had blown away as dust, a higher frequency of scream filled the echoing chamber as Darren came out enough from his cloud of unconsciousness to feel the pain of having his back open and a second pair of wings hastily attached. As the Doctor began connecting the rest of the nerves for both new sets of wings, covering his arms to the elbows in silver angel blood, Watanuki felt the bile rise in his throat and knew he was going to be ill a lot longer than his stomach had food for.

* * *

so short! so sorry! don't hurt me! 

sleepy.cat.zzz


	5. Or to take arms against

I'm back! A little early with this i think, but wth, my dear followers (if i have any) will be pleased, and besides, the sooner i'm done with this, the soon i can start thinking up the sequel (maybe)! so yessss...

Disclaimer: ya know, i barely own the non cannon characters ... kinda sad in a way ... but chould you still a) don't sue and b) don't steal please?

* * *

After a day of flying Dômeki and Maxwell were wheeling above the clouds like a misshapen vulture over a desert, searching for a dying creature to feed off of. Soon, they found their query, a large hulking ship with thin cannons poking out her sides and a regal, rotting mermaid as the figurehead. As they neared, they could see the person in the crow's nest take aim at them with a rifle, but then Maxwell did something that resulted in a screech melody. Obviously, the watchmen recognized it, as he lowers his gun.

"That's van Weber, good guy, just has a bad habit of treating everything he doesn't like as target practice." Maxwell comment, but Dômeki wasn't listening, the spirit chain had grown warm under his hands and was twisting anxiously, snapping like a scarf tail in a windstorm. A sharp crack sounded from down below them, around the crow's nest, and turning sharply back, Dômeki saw a firework that shot a sphere of bright gold stars with five or six evenly spaced comets stars that shot out farther than the rest. But that wasn't all; Dômeki's eyes widened as the stars burst into liquid sprays of silver and the bodies of angels, hidden until their deaths, fell towards the ship, fading into dust long before they hit the black sails.

"Zeppelin attack!" van Weber yelled, causing the deck to come alive with activity as sailors of all make and species surged onto the deck, long ranged guns in hand. Maxwell dived, taking refuge in the crow's nest along with van Weber just as a barrage of gunfire ascended into the air. Several explosions sounded about fifty feet above the tallest mast of the Fleiger, charring the sky blue Zeppelin that had blended into the monotonous sky perfectly up until now. Another deafening crack issued from van Weber's gun, this time, it exploded with a loud crack and a small, bright red blast. It burned a hole in the thick, but still flimsy skin and lit whatever gas inside on fire. The Zeppelin burned cleanly away, like angel dust, but the astonishing thing was the hundred of angels that poured out of the interior. Many of them had bows and were firing from a distance, although some were still shot down. The majority of them charged, or dived rather, swords drawn. They were quickly shot down.

"Don't they know nothing can survive my Magic Bullets?" van Weber asked as he fired one that zoomed around in a spiral before exploding into a fireball. He rapidly discharged the empty casing but then a war cry sounded from above, and, looking up, the trio in the crow's nest saw an angel charging straight at them. Maxwell was unarmed, and van Weber was caught without a bullet in his musket (which seemed to hold more than the standard one shot). Dômeki, instinctively, put his hands into the ready position for archery, swung up, pulled back, and fired, all without either bow or arrow. But it still seemed to do the trick, as the angel vanished in a similar fashion to the spirits.

"Well, that was unexpected." Maxwell commented offhandedly after a moment of stunned silence. Van Weber just grunted and spat a few more bullets into the barrel of his gun between layers of gunpowder, loading at least twelve shots into the five foot barrel in under thirty seconds. But the battle was nearly over already, the demons were ahead, although without their own casualties, judging by the splattering of electric blue blood on the deck.

Only a few angels were left, mostly archers and sharpshooter, but there were defensive definitely, dodging more than shooting. All of a sudden, a sharp whistle sounded, and all attention moved back to the deck of the ship, where a man in a white lab coat had exited and was now holding the door to the innards of the ship open. Out of the corner of his eye, Dômeki saw an angel prepare her shot, and he prepared to shoot her. However, a white blur got to her first, lobbing her head off cleanly. When it spun around, he was shocked to see a creature with the body of a twelve-year-old but at least eight pairs of wings and bony protrusions from his arms that seemed to be razor sharp.

He made quick work of the rest of the angels before flying back to hover in front of the whistler, who seemed dramatically elated before moving back inside. Taking a quick peek at the spirit chain for the first time since boarding the vessel, Dômeki was surprised to see that the long scarf, still warm to the touch, lead down through the newly closed door. So, thinking of that, he quickly exited the crow's nest via the rope ladder leading out the hole around the mast. He found the route hard, as the ship had suddenly begun swaying even more violently as it rushed in a forward motion. And the trip to the door was difficult too, as every available hand was busy trying to rub the blue blood off the deck, but he made it. But, as chance would have it, at that moment, disaster struck.

* * *

Watanuki was deathly tired and trying his hardest to get some sleep in the corner of the cage, the single pillow he wrestled from Schrödinger. He thought he hadn't been let out of the cage for about two day although he may have been wrong, as there were no clocks or windows in the lab to tell the time. The change of time could only be counted as when the Doctor was in and when the Doctor was out.

Either time wasn't very good for Watanuki, as during one, he got to hear the whirling of saws and the screams of the "patients" on the slabs, mostly the mutated angel, who received many sets of wings. He had yet to decide weather hearing screams was a good sign or not, after all, at least when they screamed, they were sure to be alive. The other time, when the Doctor was out, might have been worse, as Watanuki got to listen to the labor, sometimes gurgling breathing of those still alive, in pain and sometimes chocking on what was hopefully water but probably their own blood. Every time Watanuki tried to doze, a scream would sound or the breathing would fill his head until he found it hard to breathe too. Schrödinger though, he did nothing but sleep for the entirety of Watanuki's stay.

Then, on the Doctor's third visit, Schrödinger woke up suddenly; he got up, flickered slightly, and was suddenly by the Doctor's side, pulling his sleeve a bit as the taller man finished a few more stitches on the now silent and deformed angel.

"What is it Thirteen?" the Doctor asked, not looking up from the knotted black string he was threading through the last open wound on the angel's body.

"There is a dirigible approaching the Fleiger." He said shortly.

"Ah, Five!" the Doctor said, calling another one of his creation, "this might be a good time to test out Ninety Nine, don't you think?" he said as a blank faced girl in a maid's outfit with long silvery blond hair. "I designed him primarily for aerial combat, so this would be a good opportunity to see how well he works," the Doctor ramble as he reached up into the girl's hair, revealing a pink and white cone sticking straight out of her head where her ears should be, sort of like those blasted earphones Watanuki was forced to wear on occasion.

Flicking it open, he reached in and pulled out a cable and dragged it towards the figure still lying prone on the table. As it neared, the cable split into several thinner wires and jumped towards the experiment, lodging themselves in his head. A faulty blue light briefly lit up the lab, outshining the lights and casting everything on Watanuki's side of the conversation into shadow. There was a crackle, a pop and a fizz, and then slight moans from the table. Slowly, the angel propped himself up on his elbows, then sat up, experimenting with his wings, giving them light flaps, shaking loose feather from them. However, Watanuki only saw the face, a young one with blood stains dripping from the mouth. He could feel the blood pumping in his ears and had a feeling of lightheadedness because now giving the Doctor a look of devotion was the sullen angel, Darren.

"Up you go, let's test out those wings." The Doctor said, but then a large explosion sounded, although no one but Watanuki flinched.

"To the deck!" the Doctor ordered, marching upwards, Darren sliding off the table and following behind. Schrödinger and the girl had disappeared, leaving Watanuki alone in the lab with the inhuman things in the cages on either side. Overhead, more explosions sounded and a few minutes later, although it seemed like forever to Watanuki, everything stopped.

It was then a howling started, like wind whipping through caves, that eerie note that sent shivers up your spine. Then, something rolled under the ship, like a rouge wave but then, green, semi-transparent ghosts slipped through the floor and started drifting through the room. Spattered among the crowds were those familiar figures in white and black, like the girl that had kidnapped Watanuki and started this whole mess. They were passing through the tables, gently closing up the gaping wounds, but not healing them, and not looking back as they slid off the slabs to follow, collecting the odd green transparent tinge that ran rampant through the older spirits. Several of the spirit shepherds took it upon themselves to release all of the Doctor's creation from their imprisonment, him included.

When it had been _very_ clearly indicated that Watanuki had been collected, he once again felt the odd sensation of having his feet out of his control as he marched through the wall, of all things. He continued marching rigidly from the waist down, his torso and upper body was still under his control. The wave of souls pushed up through the ceiling and the rest of the decks, surfacing onto the main deck, and finally, up and out, the green tinged bodies forming a wave up into the plastic sky. As they passed the crow's nest, they saw the amazed faces of van Weber, another demon, thin, pale, with large black wings, and a teenager that looked eerily like Dômeki, but it couldn't be, could it?

* * *

Dômeki stared, helpless, as the object of his search rushed past him in the wave of souls flying towards the sky. He didn't notice one of the traditionally dressed people spotted though the multitude stop and turn towards him. He did notice the odd tug that pulled him into the tide of green tinged soul though. So both Watanuki and Dômeki rushed towards the sky and as they crashed into it, they felt the oddest sort of sensation before the fake blue barrier broke, shattering into hundreds if not thousands of pieces. The tide then rushed through, into the inky black that lay beyond.

* * *

**_a second interlude_**

"How do you know my name?" Dômeki Nozomi said, shocked.

"You wish to see your son again yes?" she asked, giving Nozomi a piercing, yet lazy look.

"Yes." She said, still confused.

"Well, you're in the right place." She said, "I can grant your wish, but there's a price to be paid." The wish witch said, sitting up, "Are you willing to pay the price?" she asked an eerie, dark aura settling around the room.

"What would I have to pay?" Nozomi asked tentatively, remembering vaguely the ambiguous stories her son would allude to about his friend and his manipulative employer.

"You'd just have to visit my shop whenever I need you too, the minute I ask you too." She said lightly, Nozomi mulled over the offer, then agreed, it was her son that was in the balance after all and a mother would give up much more than a free afternoon to keep her child safe.

"Good, then follow me." She said, leading Nozomi back into the store. The two women passed through a nearly filthy kitchen and several dust covered stair cases.

"Sorry about the mess," the woman said, "my help is… detained currently." she said as they neared a room in the back. Opening the door, Nozomi saw something no mother ever wants to see.

* * *

So short i'm sorry! but the next chapters will be MUCH longer...maybe...review?


	6. a sea of troubles

okay, we're about half way there. sorry to everyone who's been waiting for this, but my laptop, ie. my life, had a defected mouse and had to be sent out for servicing and i just got my baby back.

so yes...thank you to to **silver windflame** (oddly, i felt a swell of pride at being called creepy), **ShadowKat-Shidobukatsu **(neat name), **Jenniyah** (i agree, and it will only get worse for wata-chan mwahahahacough), and **YunaFab** (here's the next chapter). so yeah...review and i will shout out to you too.

and people, here the crossovers are getting blatantly obvious. i have both more chapters of this and a vauge idea for the sequel floating through my head for the grande prize for those who can guess all of the crossovers, really, free preview a good week/month in advance, this is a sweet deal, get it while it lasts.

disclaimer: i don't mind CLAMP owning xxxholic, i would probably butcher the story if it was left in my hands.

**warning**: if you haven't read the prequel to this yet. DON'T keep reading. go back and read Fallen Angels and the Season of Tears or else the next bit won't make much sense.

* * *

When Watanuki woke up, again, he found himself very alone. He was in a long avenue, completely devoid of life. The avenue itself though, was an interesting place to be, as it wasn't one of those sweeping shopping avenues of home, but one of the tighter, cobblestone streets of Old London, lined with squat shops piled on one another with signs that should have been declaring the nature of the depot ominously blank. The windows were covered in inches of dust on both sides. 

"Hello," Watanuki called, answered only by his own echo. He wandered into a shop at random, noting the dust that covered it all, and inhaled slightly, raising dust and causing him to hack and cough. When he stopped coughing, he looked around, keeping a hand firmly over his mouth and nose to prevent a repeat performance.

Inside this particular shop was a collection of weapons of all origin and use. In the corner was a collection of broadswords and katanas, mostly just covered in dust but some had a highly toxic smelling brown sludge dried on. A whole wall was dedicated to projectiles of all length and type. But Watanuki didn't really care about these details, a quick sweep o the shop revealed that nothing had been around since the weapons were arranged, so he turned to leave, hopefully his next visit would be a little less…disused. Watanuki only had a few seconds to duck after he heard the metal on metal of a weapon moving, luckily, he ducked in time, trained by all of Yûko's more lethal jobs. Turning towards his attacker, maybe to negotiate, Watanuki got another shock as he saw the weapons floating in midair, as if being waved by invisible hands. As a trio of dart, dark venom leaking from their tips launched forward, Watanuki slipped out the door and firmly slamming it shut. As he jumped back, three solid thunks sounded from the other side. Breathing heavily as the adrenaline stopped flowing, Watanuki continued down the street, anxious to find someone to help him find his way home.

* * *

Dômeki blinked and then suddenly, the darkness in front of his face evaporated as the scene in front of him came into focus. He was on a boat, a large one, although it was sleeker and thinner than the Fleiger. Black sails decorated the mast and sailors in mismatched gear dotted the deck. A screech of a monkey brought his vision skywards just in time to see the primate fall off his perch after the shot of a gun. 

"Blasted Monkey!" a pirate yelled, dashing past, waving a gun.

"Captain, stop firing so close to the sails!" someone yelled,

"Shiver me timbers!" a parrot squawked, "Shiver me timbers, shiver me timbers, shiver me-"

"Mr. Cotton, shut that bird up!" an Arabian man's voice spiraled from the gun ports a level down. Blinking in confusion at the random activity around him, Dômeki did the most logical thing, followed the spirit chain. He was hit with the odd sensation of déjà vu from the time that Watanuki had disappeared under the Hydrangeas. But he swept those memories under the rug to be examined another day. Instead, he followed the spirit chain down into the bowels of the ship, eventually slipping into a squat closet that opened onto another plane entirely.

* * *

Watanuki stumbled into another shop, this one a simple grocer, nothing worrying about that. The windows looked cleaner too, perhaps it was actually inhabited. But when he opened this door, he was sourly shocked. No doubt about it, the store was a grocer, the appropriate stands and scales where present, lined up; signs parading the prices of a pound of produce clearly legible. 

The baskets, stands, and shelves however, had not held fruit or cheese in a long time though. Instead of fresh fruit, ready for consumption, rotten, decaying shells filled the baskets high. Flies circled overhead, fat and bothersome, lazy clouds of black dots. For a while, Watanuki just stared in horror at the mess, as would any chef worth his salt. Then, he remembered to breathe. It was then he smelt the stench, like a compost heap, only more sickly sweet and overwhelming, like bad perfume. The worse stench came from the bottom of the piles and the floor, where the oldest collapsed fruits had been crushed by having new produce piled on top, squeezing the juices out and letting them drip onto the floor.

Bile rose in his throat and he clutched a hand to his face again, this time to prevent stuff from getting out of his body instead of in. While he was reeling, Watanuki had noticed the faint footprints in the floor. He wasn't sure how anyone could live among this filth, but if they did, they would know where here was, and how to get home from here. That was the reason why Watanuki decided to delve farther into this shop that reeked of death. He made it to the back, and once he was facing away from the main shop, the smell lessened slightly, like how the wind isn't as strong once you face away from it.

The new sight in front of him renewed his desire to upchuck what little acid was in his stomach. The footsteps carved into the dust that lay in a thin layer over the floor were the proper size, if not misshapen, but then one did not need human feet to be sentinel. However, the thin footprints were caused by a massive rat, a sickly black crown on its head and a multitude of smaller rats scattered around like drone bees to their queen. They had mostly converged onto one spot and those at the center were squeaking loudly as those around them tried to wriggle their way in.

Watanuki really did vomit when he saw what they were eating, dead children. His retching though alerted the rats of his presents. The crowned rat raised its massive head and turned it to Watanuki, and with a loud screech, the rest the rats turned to him, their beady gaze bringing a nervous sweat to his face. They began creeping slowly towards him and although his mind screamed RUN, Watanuki was frozen in place.

As they neared, Watanuki got a clear view of how healthy and slick the rats were and much larger than they had a right to be with pointy fangs that seemed to large for they thick noses. A creak coming from the back stopped everyone. From a doorway blocked from his view, Watanuki could hear something human coming in, and thankful, the new stranger appealed more to the rats than Watanuki.

But when the elusive character came into view, Watanuki was in for another shock. It was a man all right, dressed in old fashion, Elizabethan clothing. What made him freakish was the fact he was currently pulling off his human face, revealing a furred rat head in its place. Glancing down at the upturned faces of his horde, the rat man looked back at Watanuki, removing a long tabor pipe from around his neck,

"He looks a little thin for your tastes dears, but if you want it, go ahead." He said walking across the back of the shop. The rats swarmed towards Watanuki, a malicious intent evident in every eye and squeak. This time, Watanuki regained enough senses to quickly turn and run…into another wall of rats. They had snuck up behind him and now he was surrounded by a converging crowd of rabid, ravenous rats. As one jumped forward, biting at his pants, the front door opened.

"Piper I-" a familiar voice called from the door, stopping short when she saw the chaos surrounding Watanuki. "Piper," the woman said, her scarred and ripped face turning into a scowl, "you know the reason we let you steal children is so your rats won't eat the spirits."

"But my darling, he just wandered in and my rats went crazy." The Piper said too sugary sweet innocence as evident as possible in his rat eyes.

"Doesn't matter, one more infraction and we're sending you too Hell." She said, ruffling her molting wings in agitation. Something about her struck a cord in Watanuki, he was sure he had seen her before. Suddenly it clicked,

"Parisa?"

* * *

Dômeki walked out onto a school's playground, with shorter children running around in primarily black sailor style. 

"Who are you?" some asked from the other side of the fence he was leaning against, turning, Dômeki saw someone that looked vaguely like himself although he was slightly wider in the shoulders and the stranger had messier hair. Dômeki didn't reply, slightly surprised that he could see him, the other children in the playground didn't seem to notice he appeared almost out of thin air.

"Fine then," the boy said, loosening the black uniform tie he wore. "I'm Kinomoto Toya, you are?" he asked quietly as another boy wearing the same blue blazer walked past, not wanting to be overheard.

"Dômeki Shauna" he said, tit for tat and all that.

"Do you need help crossing over?" Kinomoto said causing Dômeki to snap his full attention to the other teen, raising his eyebrows in a silent question something along the lines of "why would you say that?" Kinomoto got the message, "you look like you have something that needs to be done." Dômeki huffed, now he remembered one of the reasons he tried to get out of formal exorcisms, everyone insisted on talking in vague, polite, politically correct phrases.

"No," he replied evenly and rudely.

"If you say so." He said, turning to walk away toward the bicycles racks. Rolling his eyes, Dômeki followed the spirit chain, slipping though an alley between the school and the bank of shops nearby.

Later, he came out in a residential area, and was walking towards a plain house that closely resembled its neighbours. The spirit chain led him inside, around the back, and into an open window. Up the stairs and onto the second floor he went, the slack disappearing behind him as he followed the spirit chain past the master bedroom and another door, firmly closed, towards the last room in the row, it's door left slightly ajar. He reached for the doorknob but was stopped by a voice.

"What are you doing?" it said, spinning around like he had been caught in the middle of a burglary, only to find that Kinomoto Toya standing in front of that second door. Dômeki gave him a blank look and slipped into the room anyways; ignore the thumps of the other boy running towards him. It was a messy pink room, the drawers in the desk open, bed unmade. Dômeki focused on the bookcase, as the spirit chain led him there.

Pulling the old, hardcover book off the shelf, Dômeki flipped through it until he came to the page with the spirit chain firmly clamped in it. Once he made it to that page, he saw the book lead to another scene that was much too lifelike for a simple picture. Something high pitched and yellow yelled at him and Kinomoto tried to grab him, but Dômeki had already been sucked into his next step towards Watanuki.

* * *

Now that Watanuki had realized who the girl was, it seemed impossible that he hadn't recognized her immediately. Then of course, she was a little worse for wear, her skin a dull grey and hastily stitched up, as was her dress and her wings were nearly bare in places. 

"My name was Parisa?" she asked airily, eyes wide.

"You mean you don't rememb-ow!" Watanuki screeched as a rat bit him,

"Piper." Parisa turned on the rat man who bore a sour look on his face.

"If you're not going to let my babies eat him, could you please stop tempting them?" He said sullenly, like a child being scolded.

"No more eating spirits," Parisa said dramatically, puffing her cheeks, as she turned on her heel and left, Watanuki scampering behind.

"So who was I?" Parisa asked eagerly as they exited the disgusting shop and its owner.

"You don't remember?" Watanuki repeated, still perplexed.

"No body remembers anything when they come to Limbo; well, if they come to Limbo to be recycled." She said thoughtfully, her voice now a nearly irritatingly high squeaky thing.

"Recycled?" Watanuki asked, even more confused,

"You know, re-incarnated, karma, no?" she said, trying to make Watanuki see,

"You're soul is wiped blank and then it's put into a new baby on Earth, you can't make souls out of thin air." She explain, scoffing at that last bit.

"So you're waiting to be re-incarnated?" Watanuki said slowly, almost understanding.

"Yeah," Parisa said, "but now back to me being an angel," she said, changing the subject.

"I didn't know you all that well," Watanuki started nervously, not wanting to disappoint.

"I don't care," she said, "anything would be great."

"Well, you always said 'live without regrets'" he mention, referring to the dancing in the rain session which he had yet to repeat.

"That makes sense," she said pensively,

"Um-you always came off a bit er-scatterbrained." He said nervously, unsure how she would take it,

"I think I remember that…" she trailed off,

"You said that there was going to be a war between heaven and hell…" Watanuki nearly whispered, his mind roaming back to the days spent with the angels, what had happened to them?

"Oh," she said simply.

They walked in silence for a bit, Watanuki pondering the fate of Antoinette and Shylock, the only angels he cared about, and Parisa locked in her maybe half memories. Suddenly, she stopped suddenly in the middle of the street, sharply inhaling. She started quivering then before breaking into a keening wail that dissolved into muted sobs. Watanuki cautiously neared, unsure of how to handle this. The situation was made more awkward when Parisa threw herself at him, sobbing to his ratty jacket. Even more uneasily, he gently patted her back in what he hoped was a comforting manner, thankful that no one was out to see this interesting situation.

"What's wrong?" he asked after a few minutes, unenthusiastically although he tried not to let it show.

"I-hic-just remember-sniff-how I d-died." She whispered before breaking into another round of sobs.

* * *

AN: kudos for anyone who can remember!

* * *

Dômeki fell heavily onto a dark floor, his middle hitting something hard and oval across his middle. Recovering from the pain, he heard scuffling from the other side of the wall, then it opened, revealing a tall broad shouldered youth in a green apron on the through the door. 

"Kakei-san, there's a random boy in the washroom." He said, yelling to someone outside Dômeki's field of vision. Soon, more footsteps were heard as another man, this one taller, slimmer, blonder, and wearing a lab coat, walked into view. He simply stared at Dômeki for a second before blinking and smiling a warm smile,

"You're Yûko's boy, no?" he asked, Dômeki just gave a small sigh and a nod, coming to terms with his new nickname.

"Welcome to the Green Drug Store." He said, opening the door wider and moving backwards. Awkwardly, Dômeki left the small bathroom.

"You're searching for you're friend, aren't you?" Kakei asked, an odd glimmer shining off his glasses and an odd emphasis on friend.

"Yeah." Dômeki said bluntly, blinking in the harsh light of the florescent tubes.

"Would you like some help in finding the next portal?" he asked, walking alongside Dômeki as he neared the store. At first, Dômeki wasn't going to accept, determined to find Watanuki on his own. But then he remembered the three days wasted unconscious, and the time wasted running through these different dimensions.

"Sure," he said, turning towards the slightly shorter man.

"Great, then you can accompany Kazahaya-kun and Rikou-san on their next job." he said, smiling his little knowing smile.

A few hours later found Dômeki, Kazahaya, and Rikou marching up the steps to a low ceiling basement proudly adorned with then name "Babylon."

"What's this job again?" Kazahaya, or at least, the one Dômeki thought was Kazahaya, said.

"Don't you ever listen?" the taller one replied, slightly exasperated, "we're suppose to find a carving in this building with a saying on it and we're posing as models for Babylon's advertising." he explained, shortening a full ten minutes of debriefing by Kakei into two sentences.

By then they had entered the club through a short staircase and a heavy iron-grey door embezzled with a large gothic cross. They stopped short at the sight inside, namely the racks of leather, the long dark red or deep purple seamlesses (AN: photographers' toys to get rid of wall seams), and the many…interesting props that littered the room.

"You must be the boys Kakei sent," a tall man said, coming over to the door from where he was eating lunch with the about four other people, a warm smile contradicting his cold, calculating eyes.

"Thank you for coming, you know what your-"

"Ah, my models!" a man with fly away grey hair interrupted and a lab coat squealed, striking a pose once only confined to Shojo mangas.

"Brother, stop getting so excited, you're just behind the camera, remember?" a younger man said in a more subdued manner, tucking long blue bangs behind his ears; which sent the older man into a bit of an overdramatic depression.

"It's alright Icchan, you're a great photographer, Ojiro just has a better fashion sense than you." The third member of the odd party, and only girl, said.

"Thank you Misakichi," 'Icchan' said, patting the young woman's red hair.

"I thought that there were only going to be two models." The last member of the luncheon said, turning kind green eyes towards the newcomers.

"I just tagged along." Dômeki said truthfully,

"Goodie!" the short red-head said, "I need someone tall to help me with the lights." This should have been rather obvious, as she stood a gracious five feet two inches.

"Well then, shall we get started?" Ojiro asked, moving away from the table.

Later, around when they got past the ambiguous photos and into the downright kinky (AN: aka Legal Drug colour inserts drool) Dômeki was easily able to slip away, holing up near the washroom. He wasn't sure why he had allowed himself to get so far from his goal. Sign, he began pulling the slack out of the spirit chain, he was probably a good ways behind his self imposed goal to find Watanuki by yesterday; the only question was: by how long?

The spirit chain weighed heavy in his hands, like coarse burlap, a physical manifestation of his guilt for taking so long to find Watanuki. But then, it gave a slight twist before pulling itself tighter before it stopped, flowing through the archway carved into the stonework of the hallway under a curving scroll closer to the club. Obviously set on the right path, Dômeki practically ran at the wall, not terribly surprised when he went straight through.

* * *

a decent sized chapter, no? well, the pretty button is calling your name, so pwease give feed back (chibi eyes). 

and don't forget about the crossover contest! i hope to get at least some replies this time, i mean, i've labeled them. here's a hint or two: there are three CLAMP refrences in this last dom-kun POV and there are only so many stories where a Piper, who works with rats, steals children and only so many plot lines with pirates, a "blasted monkey" the captain hates, and a parrot owned by a Mr. Cotton. i will distribute previews for correct answers!!!!!

so yes...review?


	7. And by opposing end them?

i'm baack! so, thank you to **ShadowKat-Shidobukatsu **(sorry if i confuse), **YunaFab** (i admire you for pleasure reading outside your first language), and **silver windflame** (i award you my most constant review award). (tears up) thank you guys for being the type of reader i've only imagined. oh! and on a seperate note: i forgot a minor crossover in my review replies (gasp, shock, faint). Chobits! (okay, it was a vauge refrence, but personcoms are very unique). This brings the total list of crossovers up to nine for the story, if you can spot the others, kudos to you (but i'm running out of grand prizes bites nails)

Disclaimer: i think i can i think i can i think i can i think i can i think i can...okay, let's try this (checks in drawers) nope, no copyright to anything (sigh)

* * *

Parisa eventually stopped crying, her sobs reduced to weak sniffles. But by then, Watanuki's shirt was soaked through.

"I'm sorry," she muttered lightly, rubbing her eyes and the tip of her nose, "I wonder what happened to Manelin…" she trailed off, the familiar unawares look that had been previously absent back with a vengeance.

"Well, shall we head back to my place?" she asked, tilting her head slightly,

"S-sure." Watanuki said, scrambling up and dusting himself off. Parisa slowly followed suit, although she didn't bother with the dirt staining her hem of her already filthy dress.

"This way," she said, gesturing down an alley.

"Are you sure about this?" Watanuki asked nervously, glancing down the pitch black alley.

"This is perfectly safe." She said, an innocent smile on her face as she started wandering down the slim opening, looking even more like an unearthly specter in the pitch darkness.

"I'm not so sure about this," Watanuki said, slowly following because he didn't have anywhere else to go.

"Such a worry wart," Parisa giggled. Then, they heard footsteps come from slightly in front. Refocusing his gaze, Watanuki tried to see the person blocking their path, but the tall stranger's face was obscured in shadow. The only thing that stood out clearing were the silver bands on his wrists, the long, crooked spikes on them gleaming in the meager light.

* * *

On the other side of the painted archway was a castle courtyard, similar to the painting in Babylon. A small garden of lush green temperate climate greenery lovingly tended and still green, even though the breeze cut through the cotton clothing he received at the drug store. The courtyard was flanked on three sides by shadowy hallways of grey stone in a very classic style, like a fairytale story of princesses and dragons; the fourth side was a tall arch, giving whoever was on this balcony a grand view of the lake.

Footsteps echoing down one of the corridors alerted the teen of the presence of others. Quickly he slipped behind a fur tree so he was plush against the stonework, scraggily branches in his face.

"Are you sure this map works Moony?" a teen with unruly black hair and glasses asked, shoving a piece of…parchment (?) into his companion's face, Dômeki was almost curious enough to try for a view not obstructed by thick fur branches.

"I'm pretty sure it does Prongs," the strawberry blond said, worrying the neck tie he wore, "what made you think otherwise?"

"Look here Moony," the third, and tallest member of their party said, leaning over the blond to jab at the map, nearly hitting the other boy in the nose,"You're not on this map, but there's this random dot here, and the label's unreadable,"

Meh, whatever, Dômeki wasn't really interested in these poorly dressed transvestites; he was just passing through to find Watanuki. He quietly walked the many halls which echoed every footfall and scuff, paying a minimal attention to the walls and the paintings. A quick gasp brought his attention to a painting of a now blushing girl, turning back eager to return to his search, Dômeki paused again.

Was that Watanuki behind the slightly ajar door? Taking a step back, Dômeki saw an odd mirror, framed in gold. However, it did not show his reflection, instead, a painful fantasy of Watanuki nestled in his arms and enjoying it. Turning away abruptly before he could see anymore of that mirror, Dômeki raced down more hallways and up more stairs until he reached a funky tapestry of a stereotypical wizard trying to teach large, grotesque troll like creature to…ballet?

Then, the spirit chain started acting up again, disappearing similarly like it did when he had his body, except when he neared the end, more material would appear, leading him back and further in front of the tapestry until it suddenly veered off and hit a brand new door that appeared in the opposite wall. Opening it, he was almost relieved to be violently pulled through by those invisible winds; this world was too…borderless for his tastes.

* * *

"Gluttony!" Parisa practically squealed, rushing forward as Watanuki stumbled back. The tall figure doesn't bother hugging the angel back, he just turns two round, eerily glowing eyes at Watanuki, slurping the line of drool that had dripped from his mouth.

"What do I look like? An appetizer?" he burst out, fed up with the constant funk of shock he'd been in since he had left life maybe two weeks ago. The thing, Gluttony, gave a bit of a whine and a gurgle, like a baby almost.

"You can't eat him," Parisa said with a hint of exasperation, Watanuki's eye twitched briefly, another questionably sentient being wanted to eat him, that makes two in one day.

"Avarice wants you." The Leviathan of a man said to Parisa.

"He does?" Parisa said, frowning slightly, "Watanuki, could we please make a quick stop before heading back to my place?" she asked, no waiting for a reply before continuing down the alley, knowing that Watanuki didn't really have the choice. He followed, grumbling slightly, Gluttony bringing up the rear.

They meandered through a series of wide avenues and thin alleys, seemingly chosen at random. As the odd trio continued into this odd corner of Limbo, the building turned from a state of disuse into a state of disrepair; doors hanging from one hinge or broken window panes as well as holes in drywall and exposed roof beams seemed prominent. Suddenly, Parisa vanished, and when he looked down, Watanuki saw she had simply jumped down into an open cellar door that looked like the yawning trap of some absurd frog. A sharp jab from Gluttony unbalanced Watanuki, and he flailed for a bit, arms pin-wheeling, trying to regain his balance while making rather adorable noises. Then, gravity won and he fell, being swallowed again by the darkness.

----this is where the preview ended (looks down) oh! that's about half a chapter, is it not?

Watanuki landed heavily on his front, nearly winding himself. Hearing a bit of scrambling above, he quickly scampered off before he was crushed by Gluttony. Brushing invisible dust off of his tattered jacket, Watanuki sighed deeply before continuing down the gloomy hall towards Parisa's giggling. Soon, he came to a large room, dimly lit and full of people and mountains of riches.

In the center on a slightly more extravagant chair lounged a thin man with long, fire-engine red hair. In one hand he loosely grasped a long whip; the other was absent mindedly petting a familiar blonde head. When Watanuki entered, the once bustling hall fell silent, all eyes either riveted on this new apparition or cautiously glancing to the red head on the throne. Said person slowly got up, thick soled books making sharp snaps against the stone floor not unlike gun shots. Much too soon for the wandering spirit's taste the king of this castle was standing in front of him, a tad too close for Watanuki's taste.

"You must be that tasty spirit that's floating around. The rumors don't do you justice. I'm Avarice," he purred, coming so close he filled Watanuki's vision, "And welcome to my court." Gulping, Watanuki turned and tried to run but was stopped by a tight restraint at his neck.

"Where do you think you're going?" Avarice asked coyly, pulling his whip along with his struggling prisoner towards him. "I am Avarice, greed incarnated. I covet anything and everything. Did you think that I would let such a treasure as you go?"

* * *

"What did you do to him?" Nozomi screamed upon seeing her only son stretched out on the borrowed bed like a corpse in a coffin, the shallow rise of his chest the only indication of life.

"I didn't do anything; he chose to follow his friend." Yûko said, gesturing to Watanuki, who had gone ignored, on the other bed.

"He did this to my baby?" Nozomi accused. She tried to advance upon the room either to grab her son and run (ignoring the fact he was a good deal taller and heavier than her) or to attack the comatosed boy who took her child away from her. But she was retained by Maru and Moro who grabbed her arms and were pulling her back towards the exit, Yûko following at a more subdued pace.

"Our deal is done-"

"No it's not!" Nozomi screamed, trying to break out the iron grip the two little girls had on her,

"-and you have somewhere to be, just remember your end of the bargain." Yûko finished as Nozomi was thrown off her property, face down. When she turned back, the store had disappeared, turning back into the empty lot she was used to.

* * *

To say Watanuki was happy with his current living arrangements was like saying an argophobe likes parachuting. At the present moment, he was being dragged kicking and screaming back to Avarice after his third escape attempt in as many days.

"Sugar" the red head said, slouching in his chair, "why do you do this? I'd thought you would understand by now that I own you." He leaned forward towards his prisoner who was pinned to the floor by the massive, drooling Gluttony.

"Besides, where would you run? You have neither a map to any exterior world nor a friend to take you." Watanuki just glared a cold, hard look of utter hatred. Avarice laughed, a cruel sound "On day you'll learn" he said, chuckling, "then, you'll be thanking me."

Several days after that conversation, and several more attempts at freedom later, Watanuki's spirit was waning and his collection of scars was growing. He was currently propped up in his rag filled corner, trying to ignore the world. However, the world wasn't going to ignore him.

"Hello Sugar," Avarice said, randomly crouching down to Watanuki's level. Before he could respond, Avarice's hand shot out with viper like agility and attached something to his neck. Reaching up, Watanuki attentively examined the new accessory with shaking fingers. A wide band of thick leather covered in hard cool metal with worn engravings now encircled his neck.

"I know how much you love me, but I need your pretty face to help recruit others to my cause. This seemed the most logical thing to do, really." Avarice said to the shocked spirit, rattling the chain to Watanuki's rune encrusted collar for emphasis.

"Now," the red head continued, "before you get any ideas of escaping, this chain can only be handed off to someone else, you can't break it or take it from your keeper. Oh, and if you think about hurting your keeper, well, just don't." he smirked as Watanuki jumped from the sudden and violent wave of pain that exploded behind his eyes. He stared at the evil red head with a new deep-rooted fear. Avarice smiled a creepy smile then and got up, dragging Watanuki with him.

"Angel!" Avarice called out over his hall. From a corner with a few pallets haphazardly piled a blonde, disoriented head popped up, "could you take Sugar head hunting?" he asked the approaching angel. Parisa nodded, yawning and shaking her wings out, causing more feathers to fall out. When she neared, she raised an eyebrow at the chain, a clear 'what is this?' conveyed in the look.

"Don't lose this," Avarice said, ignoring the unasked query and handing the chain over, "and be home by dark." He added, kissing Parisa on the forehead. She gave him a sleepy smile in return, taking the chain acceptingly. Gently tugging Watanuki, Parisa left the slightly grubby hall with the still shocked teen.

* * *

When Dômeki moved through the archway, he was sucked through and suddenly, he found himself in a crowd that of men and women dressed like they were role-playing as turn of the century Europeans. They were all rushing into this small theatre, jostling to squeeze in. Dômeki was forced in, even though he'd rather find Watanuki. He was able to stay at the back, where other stood, unable to find a place to sit but still eager to see the stage. As sharp footsteps echoed from the stage, everyone fell silent A short man walked out, dressed in a simply pair of working pants, vest, and shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He sat down in the chair already provided and started out at the crowd.

Suddenly, the air shimmered on stage, oddly, right through were the spirit chain firmly anchored in Dômeki's grip passed through. Gasps of astonishment were heard as the shimmer began to take human form. Suddenly, the image focused and Dômeki's light gasp added to the overall white noise. Watanuki, dressed in an odd outfit of a long black coat and a cravat. He was agitated, nervously fidgeting, anxiously peering around the audience.

"Who are you?" someone called,

"Where did you come from?" another yelled, Watanuki ignored them both. The magician had been looking oddly at this apparition; this wasn't part of the show. Watanuki finally found who he was looking for and paused in his fidgeting, staring straight at Dômeki.

"What do you want!" some from the balcony said, but Watanuki was already starting to vanish after not even ten minutes on stage.

"Save me." He whispered (although it echoed throughout the theatre) just before he vanished the same way he came, in a dusty shimmer like a heat mirage.

"Save you from what!" was the main question yelled at the stage from the crowd. Dômeki didn't hear them though; he was too busy pushing his way through the crowd, trying to get to the stage. When he finally, cleared the standing crowd and entered the isle, he was able to take a running start, jumping onto the stage in one smooth motion and dashing into the backstage, ignoring the roar from the crowd and the yells from the magician trying to stop him. He flung open the door and dashing into the startling bright light that lay beyond.

* * *

yeah cliffhanger! will dom-kun ever be reunited with wata-chan? or will our poor wandering spirit be forced into the servitude of Avarice for the rest of time? all will be revealed sooner or later. 


	8. to die, to sleep No more

okay. i think i have some expaling to so (hehe...)

well **ShadowKat-Shidobukatsu**, thank you for being so accepting, reading your reviews helps my hospitalized ego.  
dear **YunaFab**, on Yuko, haven't you noticed that when things don't quite go her way, she gets really serious and rather unhelpful (see monkey's paw) and people aren't really allowed in the shop once their wish has been granted, and mama-dome-san had her wish granted and maybe tried to attacked wata-chan, who Yuko is rather protective of. and the image of wata-chan on stage is patially his subconious's unconcious and paritally a "get a move on" message and no, wata-chan doesn't know about it.  
and **silver windflame** ans to "how does watanuki get from A to B so quickly" is well...walking time is boring to write and it was actually only about ten minutes (walk around any major downtown area, the sketchy-ness can change like that!(snap) ps. yes it was harry potter but in the maurader's time so IOU partial goodness.

Disclaimer: come on everyone on three, one, two three...

* * *

Wandering down the abandoned streets of Limbo seemed a fruitless task to Watanuki, but Parisa was able to find small pockets of population hidden in some of the cleaner streets. None of them, however, chose to join Avarice's entourage. Overhead the sun had vanished behind a curtain of iron grey clouds. Suddenly, a loud tolling started, like the ring of an old fashion doorbell. At the unexpected noise, Parisa changed directions abruptly, moving back down into the slums. But as they neared the source of the sound, the clang of metal on stone and the pounding of feet became the predominant noise. 

"Get them!" as the most common shouts.

The angry masses were still several streets away when something or someone exploded from a shop beside them. Next time he checked, Watanuki was flat on his back, two large people with massive wings sprawled on top of him. Scrambling up, the two mystery persons were revealed as an angle with sandy blond hair and gold tinted wings. The other angel of was similar height although slightly thinner but where the first was gold, this one was silver. Both had an almost dead aura about them and were in a state of disarray unheard of in angels. A second look betrayed them as familiar and both Parisa and Watanuki gasped as they recognized Powers Sandaphon and Sameal.

"Run" Sandaphon simply said, dashing down the street hand in hand with Sameal. Watanuki and Parisa stared running after them once they realized the hostile crowds were nearing. Soon they caught up with the faster pair due to a dead end. Looking at the back of a two story building, Sandaphon glanced back at Sameal.

_Should we try and save them too?_ He Whispered, unawares that Watanuki understood. Sameal just shrugged and held out a hand to the spirit. When he was met with a quizzical look he said,

"What, do you want to be found by the Chorus? I hear they still need bait." Realizing his predicament, Watanuki grabbed the offered hand.

"Here," Parisa said, thrusting Watanuki's chain at Sameal who raised an eyebrow. Jumping high, Sameal grave a solid flap, scattering feathers all over the ground, dragging Watanuki along with him to an open bedroom window.

"Hurry" Sameal tried to yell quietly. Below, Sandaphon was gathering the fallen feathers. Sameal dragged the stained yellowing sheets off the ratty queen sized bed in the room and hastily tore it into strips and, after tying them together, dangled the makeshift rope out of the window. Parisa hastily shimmied up as the roar of the crowd neared, Sandaphon following quickly. Immediately after Sandaphon had hit the floor,

Sameal pulled the sheet rope in to the room and Sandaphon snapped the window shut. A second after the flurry of activity, the roar reached its climax. The occupants of the abandoned bedroom waited with baited breath as the stampede of feet thundered down to the dead end.

"They must have gone the other way." Someone yelled eventually and the herd began receding down the alley.

"Holy shit, we made it." Sandaphon said gasping in shock at their success.

"I still say it's an injustice we had to fall to start with." Sameal said, slumping beside the taller angel, knitting their hands together.

"You're that little Angel we had to kill, Paris right?" Sandaphon said to Parisa, which was false but she nodded anyways, irrational fear overriding the flight or fight instincts that had lent her courage before.

"We're sorry about killing you," Sandaphon said, tossing the chain back to Parisa, who gave him a condescending look.

"Really, we are," Sameal piped up, "following orders and all that shit they forced down our throats." Parisa nodded absentmindedly, looking down, lost in thought.

"Ah well, we're free now!" Sandaphon crooned, Sameal leaning against him with a smile on his face. The happy/fearful scene was broken by pounding feet on the stairs. Sameal's eyes snapped open and he rushed to open the window, breaking the glass when it jammed. Both larger angels shoved their way through, blood the colour of quicksilver and sky streaming from where the shards of glass broke through flesh. Parisa threw the chain to Watanuki before vanishing into thin air. Watanuki was left scrambling. Finally he flung open the door to a closet before the footsteps finished climbing the stairs.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a closet exactly. Long white strips of material, varying in width from thread to scarves, whipped out of the 'closet' and wormed their way into the weave of his clothing. Just as the footsteps stopped outside the door, the threads pulled at him simultaneously, jerking him into the total darkness as the white (now black in the darkness) strings wound themselves around him, tussling him up like a spider to a fly.

* * *

Dômeki crashed into the door positioned too close to the point where he passed through. Holding his nose, which was bleeding slightly, Dômeki staggered sideways, partly from the full body pain of hitting a door so thick it could have been solid ground and the fear and pain he felt rippling down the spirit chain. Fearing the worst, Dômeki started running again, following the spirit chain down the old English streets until he came by one with the sign 'Asylum' writing in delicate, spidery webs. 

The spirit chain, warm before, was searing now; Dômeki could feel the skin on his hand scorching but he persisted. Barging in, he raced up the stairs. Above, he heard frantic scrambling and the tinkling break of glass. When he entered the room, it was empty and but for a stripped bed and glass from the blue-silver blood framed broken window. He followed the spirit chain to the closet. When he opened it, strips of white cloth tried to ensnare him, but he just brushed them away, too intent on his goal. What greeted him was the sight of Watanuki (judging from the spirit chain) wrapped in the same white material that assaulted him at the door.

He was covered from head to toe in tightly wound bandages; the ones around his torso had actually formed a straight jacket. The loose ends of his wrappings were suspending him in a giant parody of a spider's web dissecting the perfectly spherical room covered in more white. The webbing was also gagging and blindfolding Watanuki although they didn't stop the whimpering and the tears. Without thinking, without considering how stupid and illogical this course of action was, Dômeki jumped on to the web suspending Watanuki at least ten feet off the ground. The cloth gave way under Dômeki, not able to survive both the unexpected weight and the exorcising abilities the teen possessed. Without the support of their fellows, the other structurally important elements snapped too, causing their prize to fall onto his savior.

* * *

After a piece of trapping lashed itself across his eyes, Watanuki started panicking. He felt himself being raised into the air and the circulation in his legs was cut off. Watanuki tried to scream, but another restraint has snaked its way across his mouth. Finally, he stopped moving. Wiggling precariously, Watanuki swayed gently. Then he private horror reel began. 

The delivery was like Blitz's attack, a series of disjoined moments, but the content was very different. Instead of a mind destroying memory rewind, every moment of depression and anguish was relived in gruesome, exaggerated detail. Watanuki was forced back to every panicked moment of uncertainty of survival while being chased by spirits; all the countless times he was the cause of Dômeki's pain, the weeks of depression after his parents' funeral, the only attendants being a crowd of hungry demons licking their chops. The sheer volume of these painful memories was depressing in itself. Every negative emotion was heightened until a single tear was magnified into a tidal wave and every offhand looked filled with a deep rooted hatred.

"Make it stop" Watanuki whimpered, forgetting the gag in his mouth.

"Weakling" his self doubt whispered poisonously in his ear, "all asking someone else to do it for you."

"Not true" Watanuki muttered through his tears, trying to bring up an instance in which he was the hero; none came to mind.

"See, you're always waiting for Dômeki or Yûko, even that stupid pork bun is more useful than you."

"No, no, no, no nononononono…" Watanuki sobbed, trying to block out the fresh emotions spilling in fro the new memories, each one drawn out for full impact.

"Yessss." His self doubt hissed as Watanuki felt a sudden jerk before he fell.

Dômeki ripped off the gag and the blindfold first, surprised (not that we could tell) when instead of angry ranting about his ugly face, Watanuki instead showered him in tears and a constant stream of "nononononono…" The semi freed spirit buried his shame filled face into his savior's shoulder. Unsure of what to do next, Dômeki unbuckled the straightjacket, even more surprised when the floppy sleeves fisted in his shirt. A few seconds later, after Dômeki had shredded the bindings on the smaller teen's legs, Watanuki was free (although he chose to stay where he was, sobbing into Dômeki's shoulder). Dômeki picked up the spirit chain and followed the last two inches to Watanuki's chest, smiling as the last length disappeared as he laid his hand over Watanuki's heart.

* * *

FINALLY!! it's downright exhausthing thinking of more evil things to do to wata-chan and i'm running out of places to send dome-kun. but i'm not done yet!! yess...there's only a little bit more, but i think it's time to wind this down no? well then. 'till next time. 

ps. i wonder if anyone can guess where i got the chapter names from? here's a hind, think shakespear quotes.


	9. and by a sleep to say we end

oh! we're at the end! thank to everyone whose stayed with me this long. it's been a treat.

**YunaFab**, you make me feel good, **ShadowKat-Shidobukatsu**, the theatre thing was just in another world, and that Watanuki was the ghost of a plot device...and you make my ego grow! and **silver windflame**, you've been with this since the preview, weren't you? (hugs) and if anyone's seen **blackcat686**...say hi to them wouldya?

so yes...this is the last chapter, and i won't be adding an epilogue. it's been a blast.

Disclaimer: this is getting repetitive, isn't it?

...hey, this is the first serious multi-chap fic i've finished!

* * *

_... Dômeki picked up the spirit chain and followed the last two inches to Watanuki's chest, smiling as the last length disappeared as he laid his hand over Watanuki's heart._

Then all hell broke loose. A high pitched screech filled the air as something vital too the structure of the bizarre room died and the webs covering the wall unstuck and began to melt, raising an unhealthy sulfur smell. From behind the wallpaper of white, wraith like creatures appeared, the shrunken forms of angel, demon, and spirit alike; each grappling to get to the teens first. Those who did have that honor were quickly dealt with though, their delicate forms unable to withstand Dômeki's exorcizing powers.

Struggling up with his precious cargo still attached to his chest, although no longer sobbing, Dômeki waded through the crowd of beings that had once been this demonic web's prey. Finally, they reached the curved wall. Prying Watanuki off him, Dômeki gave him a rather rough push up, making sure he had a firm grip on the edge of the door shaped hole in the walls. After Watanuki struggled up, Dômeki quickly followed. Once both boys were out of that particular hell, the door snapped shut behind them with a decisive click before the entire thing began warping and rotting at an accelerated pace. Dômeki turned back to Watanuki though, bracing for the customary explosion once the shock had worn off. Instead, Watanuki firmly locked his gaze on the other boy's shoes.

"Thanks you" the bespeckled boy said quietly, the hissing of his self doubt still ringing in his head. Dômeki just shrugged, for once lacking the inspiration to think of a random, impossible dish to irritate the other with. Turning, Dômeki started walking away before he realized the other wasn't following.

Looking back, Dômeki was shocked to see Watanuki staring dutifully at the spot where Dômeki's shoes had been, shaking slightly with silent sobs. Sighing, Dômeki turned back and gently grasped Watanuki's hand, leading him out of the building.

"I'm sorry" Watanuki whispered quietly, too quietly to be heard except by those tuned to his frequency. Dômeki sighed again, pondering what had turned Watanuki into this pathetic shadow and how to reverse this.

They wandered around this part of Limbo for a while, looking for another oddly positioned portal to a more agreeable. Instead, after a good hour of wandering, they stumbled into a partially destroyed zone of chaos.

Overhead, a siren was wailing and a fat zeppelin floated trying to hold its own against a platoon of well armed man-of-wars, sailing on their thick storm clouds. Realizing his mistake, Dômeki tried to turn them back through the arch, but it didn't allow them through, putting up a glass like wall. Quickly deciding on a course of action, Dômeki pulled Watanuki down into a crouch and they began shuffling towards the demonic front. They had barely started this slow march a turret of bullets and arrows forced them down on to the ground.

"Kid?" someone asked once the bullets had stopped. Spinning around so fast he almost got whiplash, Dômeki was greeted with the sight of a whipcord thin woman in a white gi carrying a rifle nearly a long as she was tall.

"Antoinette?" Watanuki asked both astonished and wearily, glad she was alive, sort of.

"Get back!" she suddenly yelled harshly, eyeing down her gun and firing at Dômeki before anyone else could react. Luckily, it was a normal bullet and Dômeki was almost expecting something like this; he was able to dodge it so it only nicked him.

"Get away from him you demon!" she screamed, firing another shot that was dodged.

"Antoinette!" Watanuki yelled, rushing to Dômeki but stopping when he too was almost shot.

"Don't get any closer to him Kid." Antoinette said, yelling to be heard over the nearing sirens.

"Antoinette, he isn't a demon." Watanuki vainly explained, trying to make her see her folly.

"He may not be one yet," she said, "but he has the making of one, just you wait." The last bit was said in a maniac's stage whisper and followed by an equally insane giggle.

Just then, the sirens were replaced by an explosion and looking up, Antoinette let out a snarl more animal than human. In the sky, another man-of-war had joined the fight against the zeppelin; this one with pitch black sails and flashing Fleigner in gold leafed letters across the bow.

Another of van Weber's magic bullets pierced the shell of the zeppelin, sending it into flame as the firework inside exploded in a large red flower. Aiming high again, Antoinette fired at the distant crow's nest, missing her intended target but puncturing every sail. In reply, orders were yelled by Vanderdeck at the helm and something large and white and a something else thin and black fell from the rail, the second plummeting while the other glided.

75 hit the ground first, snarling at Antoinette with every tooth in its elongated mouth bare and dripping with acidic drool. The battle crazed angel growled right back and shot the hell hound, catching it in the flank. Then she raised her sights, aiming instead for the still gliding being above. But instead of firing, she started up at the thing, a nervous shake rocking her body.

Looking up, Watanuki gulped audibly too. Descending on them was the creature Darren had become, newly equipped with the same mind control device that rotted that poor bird's brain. From behind Antoinette, the clatter of Chorus boots rained on the cobble stones. From the corner of his eye, Dômeki spied a volley of winged demons descending from another man-or-war and a tide of text that was creeping towards them at an alarming pace.

In the middle of this chaos, Dômeki felt a sharp tug on his heartstrings, looking down; he was shocked to find a thick blue rope stained with red passing through his chest. Again he felt that tug, but this time there was the same inter-dimensional pull he'd felt too many times by now except in the opposite direction, towards Watanuki. Not willing to loose the wayward spirit again, Dômeki wrapped his arms firmly around the smaller teen and hung on for dear life as they wren pulled somewhere else entirely while the two deadly forces of heaven and hell collided on the streets of Limbo.

* * *

Nozomi had been given leave from work, something about mental leave while her son was missing. It was about three week later when she received the message. She was calmly sipping a large mug of tea, ignoring the obvious shaking in her hands. Suddenly in from the window drifted a paper butterfly. At the perfectly harmless sight, the woman jumped from her seat and screamed, bring her husband running. 

"Nozomi?" he inquired at the door, taking in the sight of his usually logical and determined wife quivering on the floor pointing at a butterfly. But as he blinked, the butterfly unfolded itself into a simple invitation sized letter. Edging cautiously towards the desk, the worried husband picked up the letter.

"It's time." He read, "Time for what?" he asked, but his wife had already vanished.

Nozomi arrived at the once empty lot soon after, panting and still wearing her terrycloth house coat. The odd shopkeeper was already at the door and gesturing the customer inside before moving towards an interior room of the shop. Nozomi followed at a feverish pace, unmindful of the dust rising to cover her clothes in a thin layer. Eventually, they came to a plain room devoid of furniture or wall treatments. Inside were the two comatose boys, Dômeki firmly clutching Watanuki's hand eve in this unnatural slumber. Around them and on them strange symbols were scribbled, most of them centered on Dômeki.

"What is this?" Nozomi asked, fearful of the answer.

"I need your help to get Shizuka's soul back." The Time Space Witch said, "I need a mother to call her child home, will you help?" Nozomi nodded rapidly.

"Good, we'll need a drop of blood," she started, holding out a pin. The other woman took it and stabbed her finger, wincing slightly at the pain. A single drop fell onto the scribbles and they lit up and smelling like drying tar. Yûko reached in and pulled, drawing the letters into a thick rope centered on Dômeki's chest.

"Now if you could pull this," she said, handing the rope to Nozomi as it dimmed to a sky blue. Taking it in both hands, Nozomi pulled with all her strength. For a time, nothing seemed to happen, then another blinding light started, bleaching out Nozomi's vision but in her white haze, she heard twin gasps like drowning men's first breaths and she was glad.

* * *

Dômeki came too, feeling, about all, sore. He was also missing the familiar bundle of tightly wound nerves and a big heart known as Watanuki Kimihiro. But there was a hand gripped firmly in his. Getting up slowly and painfully, Dômeki caught a glimpse of black hair and a set of red rimed blue eyes before he was engulfed by a slightly dusty terrycloth clothed woman. 

"Shizuka!" she trilled, happy to see her son alive and well. He automatically raised an arm to her back, just enough to be classified a return hug. But his attention was on the boy who now had both his hands around his and was staring into space, their collective fist gently resting on his face, probably keeping the screams in. Dômeki Nozomi was now much less maniacal, pulling her son along, pausing only once to tug his grip out of the other boy's, oblivious to their reluctance to part.

"Wait," Yûko said, stopping the Dômekis' departure, "your payment." She finished, holding out a parchment envelope detailed with a lacy butterfly. Dômeki took it wordlessly before being pulled away by his mother.

* * *

Later that night, Dômeki was toying with the unopened envelop, contemplating whether to open it or not. With a sigh, he tossed it on the desk to forever remain unopened. Besides, he already had a pretty good idea of whose name was written in it. Then he snuck out of his house, heading towards what he was sure to be a sleepless Watanuki, eager to help him forget.

* * *

and CUT! and now is when you should leave if you don't want me to ruin this with a literary after party... 

sweet! it's done! w00t! okay then, well...i suppose it's time to give credit where credit is due/time for a bunch of fun trivia to do with LiaDEaaAU...i need shorter titles.

firstly, the chapter titles come from Shakespear's Hamlet, and come just after the famous lines, "To be or not to be, that is the question..."

the full list of crossovers goes something like this...**Bleach** (i based the soul hearder in chap1 off shingami),** Full Metal Alchemist** (the various arrays throughout),** Hellsing** (switch around the powers of the Beserkes and tada! Mellenium),** Castaways of the Flying Dutchman **(Vanderdeck and the Fleigner), **Wish** (the two angels that caught dome-kun)** Chobits **(Chi equals the Doctor's "5"/reprogrammer), **Pirates of the Carribean**,** Cardcaptor Sakura**,** Angelic Layer, Tokyo Babylon, ****Legal Drug, **and **Harry Potter **(all worlds dome-kun visited/they appeared in the worlds...), **the Illusionist** (which is amazing but the first edward norton film no one else has seen, which makes everything very confusing just before dome-kun gets to limbo), and **the Pied Piper of Hamlen **(wata-chan's rat store).

so that takes care of that...pardon me while i go stand in shock for a while...


End file.
